


Emotionless Doll

by cisco_centric_4ever



Series: Crossover banana! [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-06-27 16:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cisco_centric_4ever/pseuds/cisco_centric_4ever
Summary: On the night that Naruto stole the scroll, he finds am old being in a deep cave that is willing to grant him any wish he likes. However, in return, the being wants something in return. What will happen to Naruto once he makes a deal with the most powerful, oldest being in all of existence?Warning!! CONTAINS YAOI!!





	1. What is your deepest desire?

He couldn't do it.

 

He just couldn't do it.

 

All he had to do was make one clone, and he couldn't do that. Now he was stuck doing this stupid makeup test. 

 

Naruto sighed tiredly as he secured the scroll of sealing onto his back. He really, really wished that he hadn't have failed the genin exams earlier. However, since it seems that the one requirement needed for him to pass was always the clone jutsu. It sucked how much he had to practice this one jutsu in order to pass, and even then he still couldn't pass the stupid exam. How was it that this simple jutsu was kicking his ass right now? "No use in complaining about it now, is there?"

 

 **"Nope, you might as well start heading over to the forest now."** Kurama, a voice that Naruto's been hearing at the back of his mind ever since he was three, said casually. 

 

Naruto didn't know that Kurama wasn't just a voice in the back of his mind. He was a great nine-tailed beast that (supposedly) killed the fourth Hokage. But Naruto didn't know anything about that and thought of Kurama as his own imaginary friend that lived in his head and dreams. Ever since Naruto had known him, Kurama has taken pity on the blond haired boy and taught him everything that he needed to know. He even taught him some other things just saw that he didn't have a weak vessel. Kurama watched Naruto because even though he was stuck inside of him, he thought of Naruto as his own kit in a way. But don't let that fool you, he was just as harsh in his training as he would have been to anyone before being sealed. Naruto traveled through the village as fast as he could Naruto's senses alerted them to something off in the distance. It was almost like a voice calling out to him, "what's that?" Naruto turned towards the direction the feeling was calling from, it was much farther from where the meeting point was, and this was supposed to be his last chance of sorts. "Should we go check it out?" He asked Karuma who seemed to be in deep thought.

 

 **"Hmm, maybe, but be careful. It feels powerful,"** the kitsune warned.

 

"Right," Naruto then made a B-line for the direction. He ended up in a dense part of the forest in front of a cave that he's never seen before. He followed the cave to its furthest until he came to a large opening. It was a large cavern with a large rock in the center of it that had the kanji for 'King' carved into it. He looked around the cavern to see that there was nothing else inside the cave other than the rock, he made his way over to it and was about to touch it when Kurama stopped him. "What?"

 

 **"There's something familiar about this place, but I can't put my paw on it."** Kurama looked through Naruto's eyes at the stone, trying to remember where he had seen it from.

 

While Kurama was trying to remember, Naruto could feel himself automatically moving his hand towards the stone. Once his palm was resting on the stone, a great surge of power flowed into him. "What's going on, Kurama?!"

 

**"You fool! I told you not to touch it yet didn't I?"**

 

"It's not my fault, my arm was moving on its own!" Naruto shot back, "what's happening?"

 

**"It looks like something in that stone is trying to either enter your body or make contact with you or both."**

 

"What should I do then?" Naruto asked as he tried to forcefully pull his hand away from the stone, but it wouldn't budge, "I can't move my hand!"

 

Kurama sniffed the air around them for a moment as the stone started to glow. He blinked in surprise when he recognized the smell,  **"can't be...hm, Naruto, relax your body and try to calm down."**

 

"What?! How can I? What if th-"

 

**"Just trust me kit, have I led you astray before."**

 

Naruto stopped struggling when he heard that, "do I even need to remind you of the Hyuuga incident?"

 

Kurama rolled his eyes,  **"that was eight years ago kit, let it go."**

 

Naruto still pouted at the kitsune but his expression soon changes when the rock started to glow a very bright red color. A smoke started to come from it and filled the area, it smelled sweet, unlike anything Naruto had ever smelt before. It was suffocating and he didn't want to stay there any longer in fear that he might suffocate to death due to the smoke. However, he still couldn't move his hand from the stone and the smell of the smoke was getting even stronger.

 

**_"What is your deepest desire. You can not escape me without an answer."_ **

 

The sound of a high pitched voice sounded in Naruto's ear. He couldn't tell where it was coming from because the sweet-smelling smoke was now covering everything in the cavern. He couldn't tell where he was anymore, if he was still in the cave or if he was somewhere else now, everything was starting to become hazy.

 

_**"What is your deepest desire..."** _

 

The voice came again. Naruto's head was starting to swim as he tried to find fresh air to breath, but still, the voice asked again. He could tell that it was becoming impatient now.

 

**_"What do you desire most?"_ **

 

Naruto was starting to lose balance in his legs and his head wouldn't stop spinning. But before he could lose consciousness completely, he answered that voice honestly.

 

"I don't know."

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**Mindscape**

 

Kurama was able to pull Naruto into his mind before he could feel the worst part of it. He looked down at the boy now resting on one of his tails before turning to the new being occupying Naruto's mind with him. **"So, it's been a while..."** he started,  **"what are you up to?"**

 

The being stepped out of the shadows of Naruto's mind, letting Kurama see its full form. The being had long ears like a bunny with a cat-like face, it had a long pink main, much like a lion with white fur all over a body that looked like a very fluffy cat. On it's back there was a set of long and silver butterfly wings, it also had a long and fluffy fox tail. The creature's overall appearance seemed more like a creative stuffed toy from a child's wildest imagination. The creature smirked up at Kurama as it blinked its large blue and green cat eyes,  ** _"what makes you say that, Kura-chan? Can't a spirit have some fun after two thousand years of forced sleep?"_**

 

" **Hm, your meaning of 'fun' has always differed from mine, Kattcie."**

 

 **"You say that now, but you don't know what I'm planning this time."** The creature then disappeared back into the shadows to explore Naruto's mind. Kurama frowned at the spot it once stood before turning back to Naruto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**To be continued...**


	2. Realization 1

It was like someone hit the reset button. 

 

Naruto couldn't really tell if that was really the case since he's never heard stories of people actually traveling through time before.

 

However, this feeling that something familiar was occurring kept coming to mind. It was like he had taken a couple steps back without realizing it. As he slowly opened up his eyes, Naruto looked around, he could tell right away that he was still in his mindscape, although, he didn't remember when he entered it.  _Kurama must have pulled me in after that smoke stuff knocked me out. I wonder what happened after all that."_ Naruto took another look around and could sense that something was lurking in the shadows here, he looked up from the shadows when he heard someone clear their throat. "Kurama? What happened just now? I feel kind of...different."

 

Kurama looked down at his host, in his mind, he didn't look any different. But he guessed that was because Naruto hadn't gone out into the real world to see the changes that the Kattcie had done to his body. As for what has happened, Kurama didn't have any idea for himself, the Kattcie is a very tricky being, maybe more so than the kitsune. He once heard a story from his old man that said Kattcies were the creators of fox-kind. Did he believe that? Not really, but after actually meeting one in person, he was starting to.  **"I don't really know what happened since you were knocked out, but I can definitely felt a change happen while you were out."**

 

"Hm," Naruto looked at his hands as he remembered what happened, "what was that voice back there." He looked up to Kurama, "didn't you say that there was something that was probably trying to make contact and enter my body?"

 

Kurama nodded,  **"I did."**

 

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, "well? What was it? Did it enter me or what?"

 

Kurama paused for a moment to think his next words through,  **"yes, the thing that entered you is called a Kattcie. They're an old race that dates back to the time of the Sage of Six Paths. They can be very tricky to deal with and they sometimes like to mess with people's minds for fun. However, there aren't that many Kattcie around now because of the wars that happened. The Kattcie's, even though they might have powers on par with the sage of six paths, they dislike war and fighting for selfish means. They have been known to kill anyone that tries to use them as weapons, yet, they are very loyal creatures."** Kurama paused again to turn his head to a particularly dark corner,  **"and it looks like this one has taken a liking to you."**

 

Naruto looked over to the spot that Kurama was looking at. He couldn't see anything there until a creature came out of the shadows for itself.  _ **"Hello, there human boy, like my cousin told you, I am a Kattcie. Nice to meet you,"**_ The Kattcie came to a stop in front of Naruto and sat down, it's long, white and fluffy tail swayed back and forth slowly as he looked the blond up and down.

 

Naruto returned the look as he took in every detail of the Kattcie. It was a mix between a fox, a lion, and maybe a cat? He knows he's never seen anything like it before and probably never will since it looks like this creature is a rarity. "Hm, okay, the name's Naruto Uzumaki, but you can call me Naruto. What's your name, I assume that it's not 'Kattcie', right?"

 

 ** _"Hmm, a_ _perspective little human you've got here Kurama. From what I found in his memories, he's also very smart too, but that's only to be expected, seeing as you were his teacher."_**  

 

**"Eh, I did my best so I can't complain much."**

 

"I'm right here foxy, I can hear you loud and clear," Naruto said with a roll of his eyes. He knew that Kurama hated when he called him 'foxy'.

 

Kurama refrained from smacking Naruto with one of his tails and continued,  **"anyway. What are your plans now that you've had a look around?"**

 

_**"My plans? well, I was hoping on using him to find the others of your kind, but I think I'm going to stick with him a little while longer."** _

 

**"The other's huh? Are you planning to-"**

 

_**"Like I said, I'm putting that plan off for a little bit..."** _

 

"Should I just leave so you two can talk?" Naruto asked, seeing as how the two mythical spirits were mainly talking amongst themselves.

 

**_"Sorry, about that my boy."_ **

 

Naruto sighed, "uh, so when I woke up, I felt different. What did you do to me?"

 

The Kattcie thought for a moment, putting a paw to his chin to complete the look as well.  _ **"Well, after looking through your past, or the parts of it that Kurama would allow me to see, I found that you are very smart. However, you never seemed to show it in this academy that you went through, care to explain why?"**_

 

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't really open with anyone but Kurama. Even his sister didn't seem to know anything about his intelligence, not that she tried to get to know him either way. Yet, as he looked into the mismatch eyes of the Kattcie, he felt that it would be better to tell it what it wanted to know now rather than deal with a headache later. "The village doesn't like me..." he started, "ever since I could remember, no one in the village has liked me all that much. I've never had friends or got along with anyone here."

 

 _ **"Then leave."**_  Replied the Kattcie,  _ **"if friends are what you desire, then you could always just leave this place behind for a new one. One where you would have better luck."**_

 

 **"Hmph, you make it sound so easy,"** Kurama commented.

 

_**"Isn't it?"** _

 

"I sort of wish it was. But, if you didn't pick it up from my memories, the village we're in is actually a ninja village. If a twelve-year-old kid could escape from her so easily, then the village's first line of defense would have problems if the word got out." Naruto explained, "besides, I've been under watch for as long as I could remember too."

 

 _ **"Interesting...well, if that's the case, I'll take my first step here."**_ The Kattcie took a step closer to Naruto until their faces were inches apart, he looked deeply into Naruto's eyes. Deep baby blues looked into bright blue and green ones.  ** _"Seeing as how you, I and the big fox over there are going to be spending a lot of time together, I think it would be a good time to let you in on some priceless information. This village intrigues me and also displeases me at the same time. If I am going to help you, I am going to need some information on this village, I want to know more, all of its dirty little secrets they so wish to sweep under a rug and forget about. I want to get my hands on every little detail and then, only then, will I decide if this spec of grass should stay standing or not...Your first task, Naruto Uzumaki, is to watch and learn."_**

 

"What will I be learning?... And where should I watch?" Asked Naruto, mesmerized by the creature's eyes.

 

The Kattcie backed away from Naruto and flicked his tail from side to side again. A smirk coming onto its face.  _ **"Everything I have to offer will be yours if you head to the highest tower."**_ The Kattcie chuckled to itself before turning to head back into the shadows,  _ **"since that's all for now-"**_

 

"Wait!" Naruto stopped the creature.

 

 _ **"Hm? What is it human?"**_ It asked turning back around.

 

"You still haven't told me your name," Naruto reminded, "and..."

 

 **"And a little before we stumbled upon your hiding place, Naruto kind of had the whole village after him."** Kurama said, reminding Naruto of the predicament he was still in the real world,  **"so if he was to go back now, it would be kind of hard for him to do what you ask from behind bars."**

 

Naruto scuffed, "if they don't skip the trial altogether." Kurama looked down at Naruto sadly, knowing what he said was very possible. 

 

The Kattcie was now more intrigued by the relationship of the boy and the so-called demon fox. It was sure that it would be bord if it kept these two around for a while.  _ **"Very well, I'll give you both one day to set things right as they should be. Just know that everything you know now will come back to you soon enough. When you open your eyes, you will have your true second chance,"**_   the Kattcie then walked into the shadows once more. Ready and waiting to see how things will turn out for the blond boy.

 

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When Naruto opened his eyes, he found that he was surrounded by dim lighting. He slowly got up and rubbed his eyes, his head felt like it was swimming. He looked around to see that he was in a large cavern,  _"how'd I get here?"_ He wondered for a moment as he stood up, he looked around to see if there was an exit and saw a large rock. It seemed to be about half the size of the cavern he was currently in, he reached out a hand to touch it, almost expecting something to happen, but nothing did. The rock was smooth and cool to the touch, it looked more like a bolder in the dim lighting. Thinking about how nice the rock felt under his hands, his head suddenly burst with memories of that night. Naruto blinked back the headache that was slowly forming because of the memory burst, "oh right, I'm supposed to do something. But..." Stepping away from the bolder, Naruto found the exit leading out of the cavern and then the cave, he could see that it was now daylight outside, "is it really the day before?" He wondered, he walked out into the opening of the cave and shielded his eyes from the morning sun, nothing seemed different from every other bright and sunny day he'd seen. Seeing that it was morning, whether it was the next day or not, his sister would most likely be looking for him a little before heading to the academy, He doubted that she would look very had though. 

 

Yawning and stretching his arms, Naruto decided that it might be best to head back home. However, those thoughts were sidetracked when he felt that he had something attached to his back. He reached behind him and felt the large scroll that was still on his back, then he remembered the moment he stole the scroll of sealing and paled. "Well damn, it must be the next day because I still have the scroll!" 

 

By this time, Kurama seemed to have woken up,  **"what's with all this noise, Naruto?"**

 

"Hm? Foxy awoke very quickly today, huh?" 

 

Kurama, even though a little angered by the nickname, wasn't really in the mood to make a big stink about it at the moment.  **"Naruto, you will pay for that later, now what's the problem."**

 

"Oh yeah, I was just thinking that it was the next day because I still have the scroll of sealing on my back."

 

 **"Scr-oh! Oh, okay, I remember now!"** Kurama stated as he yawned and stretched himself,  **"yeah, the way this works is that the Kattcie also has the power to send people back in time. But only some of them can send you back one at a time. The ones that are born of royal blood could send you back in the body you were in at that time, and anything you have on you at the time will also come back with you."**

 

"Oh...wait! Does that mean the original scroll of sealing is still missing?" Naruto asked he was hoping that the Kattcie's power to bring things back with him didn't land him into more trouble.

 

**"Nah, it should be fine. From what I can recall, the Kattcie can bring things back with you, but if you hadn't stolen the scroll the day before, then it should still be there."**

 

"Are you sure? How would you know that?" Naruto asked as he relaxed a bit, he decided that it might even work out better for him to see what was in the scroll. Seeing as how there may be two scrolls now, he might be able to learn a thing or two before the genin exam started again. He guessed that he might find a jutsu that could help him pass the genin exam this time around, even though he didn't really believe that he went back one day yet. Opening the scroll, Naruto found the first jutsu was also a clone jutsu, but this one was called the 'shadow clone jutsu'. "Oh, cool, it says that it uses a lot more power than the regular clone jutsu does, maybe I can learn it and use it in place of that stupid one," Naruto smiled a little at the idea.

 

Kurama frowned, it seemed that Naruto hadn't heard a word he said about witnessing the Kattcie's power in action a long time ago. However, since he's known the boy, Naruto had always seemed to have a low attention span when it came to finding out about new jutsus. If Kurama was talking to him while Naruto was reading about the jutsu he was talking about, it was more than likely that Naruto would be ignoring him in place of the jutsu. He was over the treatment after years of receiving it, looking through Naruto's eyes, he found that Naruto did have a point,  **"this shouldn't take you more than two or three hours to learn. Go for it kit, then we can see about you learning some other jutsu from the scroll somewhere else, this jutsu is actually very handy when it comes to that sort of thing."**

 

"Yeah, the scroll says that anything the clone learns, the creator learns too. I'd definitely want to give that a try." Naruto said as he started to put the scroll down on the ground to start working on the jutsu, but a scent on the wind made him stop.

 

 **"There's four of them, they're heading this way,"** Kurama said as he analyzed the scent.  **"ANBU. You better take this inside and put up one of the barriers that I taught you, they could be looking for you."**

 

"Right," Naruto quickly rolled up the scroll and rushed back into the cave. He went all the way back to the cavern before setting the scroll down and putting up a class four protection barrier around it. He doubled it's strength just in case so that there weren't any leaks in its structure. Naruto was proud to say that he was able to master this barrier when he was only six years old, since then, he's perfected it also double as a healing chamber if needed. "Alright, that should do it, what do you think, Kurama?"

 

Kurama looked at the barrier through Naruto's eyes and smirked,  **"you've improved on the spell greatly since the first time. I say you have a little under two hours before you need to reach charge, while you do that, I'll be taking a nap."**

 

**Meanwhile**

_With the ANBU_

 

 

One ANBU with a cat mask landed on a tree branch not too far away from the cave that Naruto was hiding in. She looked around the forest, not even picking up a trace of his chakra signature. Another ANBU landed behind her, this one had on a turtle mask, "Cat, are you getting anything?"

 

Vat turned around and shook her head, "no, I don't understand. When our team showed up to watch the boy this morning, it seemed like he had already left the house. Not even Mito knows where he went."

 

"I know," Turtle nodded his head, "it's actually kind of strange. I asked the others to look for him in his usual place and it seems like he's either not there or hasn't arrived yet."

 

Another ANBU, this time with a fish mask, showed up, "well, there hasn't been any reports about his usual pranks. That's bad, right?"

 

Cat folded her arms and thought for a moment. It was her team's turn to do surveillance for the Uzumaki boy and another team watched over his twin sister. Both siblings were valuable assets of the village that shouldn't get out of their sights what with both looking so much like their parents. Or maybe she was the only one that thought so, Mito's hair was a sort of a dark orange color, but it was just as long as her mom's hair when she was still alive. And while Naruto had the mark of the fox on his face, Cat didn't know any other male with bright blond hair and stunning blue eyes. Even though they were twins, Mito and Naruto couldn't be any more different with Mito being calm, cool and collected most of the time and Naruto being the prankster that he was, they were like night and day. The only thing they really had in common was the unique blue shade of their eyes. When they were born, it was said to be a surprise to both parents and even the doctors.  _"That must have been why the Kyuubi's seal was broken so effortlessly even as Lord Fourth as the seal maker in charge of it during the birth. And since there was two of them, both parents sacrificed themselves to seal the Kyuubi's power into Mito and the soul into Naruto. However, I keep thinking that they should have just killed the boy soon after just to make sure that the soul didn't corrupt him like it must be trying to do now. What if the Kyuubi's soul is starting to turn the boy as we stand here looking at each other?! In that case, we haven't a moment to lose!"_

 

"Turtle, continue the search other in that direction," she pointed to the east, "fish, you do the same in the west. I'll take the south and we'll regroup at noon if we still haven't found him."

 

"Yes, ma'am!" The two men said in unison. 

 

The trio jumped off of the branch and started their search over again.  _"Naruto Uzumaki, if you have turned, then I will be the one to put you out of your misery. For good!"_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**To be continued...**

 

 


	3. Team 11

Over the span of one and a half hours, Naruto was able to completely learn the Shadow clone jutsu without any problems at all. It might have helped that he was a fast learner in almost everything he does. He was quite proud of himself of finally learning how to clone himself, it took him an hour and a half to do what the academy took almost eight years trying not to do.

 

To teach him something useful. 

 

"Man, that took some work. Well, I think it's about time I get something to eat now," Naruto said with a proud smile on his face. He looked at the twenty clones he managed to get himself down to after another hour of trying. He was also happy that his barrier managed to stay up for the full two and a half hours it took to accomplish this feet. Once he figured out how the jutsu actually worked, the only problem that really stood in his way was the number of clones he could make. When he finally did make a solid clone, he didn't just make one, he managed to make close to two or three hundred, he realized that the cavern he was in was actually much larger than he first thought. After a little practice, he got the hang of it and started giving his clones some instructions, he got five clones to copy down some of the jutsu's in the scroll so he could study them later. Since he couldn't have the scroll with him all the time, he could use the copies when he wasn't able to be seen with the scroll. Plus, he wasn't very good at the academy level genjutsu which required too little chakra from what he possessed. While Kyuubi did teach him another kind of genjutsu called 'Demonic Vision', he hasn't fully mastered it yet. As for the other clones, he sent them outside to keep watch and make sure that no one was out there when he was ready to leave. With all of his practicing while trying to keep the barrier up and stable, he was exhausted, it was safe to say that he really wanted to take a nap and get something to eat right now.

 

 **"I'd say you earned it kit,"** Kurama said as he looked Naruto's handy work.  **"You should definitely go home now and get some rest. We can move on to something else later, now that you've learned the shadow clone, you can learn multiple jutsus quicker and with a little more ease."**

 

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But I don't want to use this jutsu because it's easy, I'll only use it when I need to." Naruto walked over to the clones that were copying down jutsus, "okay guys, time to pack up."

 

"Sure thing boss, we've managed to copy about five jutsus each. When you get back home, you can summon us again to make more copies," one clone said as it collected the finished copies and handed them to the original.

 

"We can also turn these copies into a book for you and disguise it so no one will get suspicious about it when you take it with you somewhere," added the second clone.

 

Naruto nodded, "great, sounds good." The clones dispelled themselves one by one until the last clone handed the rolled up scroll back to the original before dispelling itself. Naruto took the scroll back and secured it on his back again, he then took down the barrier and left the cavern. When he got to the front of the cave, one of the other clones that were on lookout duty came up to him, "any news?"

 

The clone shook its head, "no, not right now, everything looks clear. However, I think that the Hokage might want to start his own search since you've been gone for a couple hours now."

 

"A couple hours? Time sure does fly when you're having fun, huh?" Naruto chuckled and dispelled his other clones. As he was leaving the areas, Naruto realized how effective the shadow clone jutsu was. After a clone was dispelled, the creator would get all of its memories and experiences, but he wondered how that would translate when it came to physical training. Would he only get the memories of training multiple times or would he get muscle memory as well? Naruto couldn't wait to train to find out. 

 

On his way back to his home, Naruto sported someone training alone. He ducked out of sight just in case it was a ninja, but relaxed when he saw it was one of his classmates. It was a girl if he remembered right, she was usually quiet and very shy. She also stuttered a lot when she talked, was that a defect of her personality or something? Either way, out of all the kids in his class, Naruto remembered this girl being the only person that wasn't sucking up to his sister for one reason or another. He couldn't remember her name though, seeing as how she would either faint or run away whenever she saw him. Naruto was a little interested now that he was seeing her, she had a nice face and she seemed rather strong in her training, but there were a few things that stood out about the girl's current training method. Firstly, he knew she was a Hyuuga, so she was obviously training in her family style. However, the way that she was doing it seemed right...but wrong at the same time. It was as if this girl was going off of a paper that told her what she should be doing and what it should look like, yet, the stance was off. Her movements too. Since this girl never bullied him or made fun of him in the past, Naruto thought that he should at least give her a little bit of honest advice. In the back of his mind, he heard Kurama sigh, the fox always told him that he wasn't very good with word, going so far as to call him an something relating to a 'socially awkward fish out of water' or something like that. 

 

"Um, excuse me..." Naruto said as he stood up from his hiding place in the bushes.

 

The girl jumped and screamed a little at the sudden appearance of the blond. She really thought that she was alone out here, then she noticed who the blond boy was. "Oh, N-Naruto, i-its y-you," she stuttered, "w-w-what are y-you doing h-here?"

 

Naruto walked completely out of the bush and brushed off the leaves on his clothes. When he was done, he looked up at the girl, "why are you doing that?" He asked.

 

"D-doing w-wha-"

 

"That, that right there. Your stuttering makes it so that you take too long to say anything. You should stop it," Naruto stated plainly.

 

The girl looked down at her feet and poked her fingers together. "S-sorry."

 

Naruto sighed, "well, the stuttering aside, I wanted to give you some advice."

 

"A-advice?" The girl asked, "o-on what?"

 

"Your stance, it's all wrong. In fact..." Naruto looked the girl up and down, making her blush, "everything you're doing here doesn't suit you." He noticed when the girl became still, he wondered what she was thinking. He felt the mental slap of Kurama's tail at the side of his head and knew he had to choose his words better. He thought to himself for a long moment before he finally came up with something that might make the girl feel better, also, it might be a good idea to learn her name too. "Hey, what's your name?"

 

The girl looked up at him, she looked like she was trying to stop herself from crying, "H-Hi-Hinata H-Hyuuga," she answered.

 

Naruto paused to analyze what the girl just said, "Hinata Hyuuga, is that right? You sit in the middle back row next to that guy who's always bringing his dog to school, right?" The girl, Hinata, nodded her head, "okay then, now that I know your name, how about you let me train you."

 

Hinata looked at Naruto as if he was speaking another language.  _"Did he just offer to train me? But from what I've seen, he's not very good at much of anything in the academy. Why would he offer me something like that?  Unless he's trying to prank me, maybe?"_ Hinata didn't know what to say or how to answer him, he was her crush, but-

 

"I'm not trying to prank if that's what you're thinking." Naruto stated, "I meant what I said, what's your answer."

 

Hinata was stunned, "I-I'm so-sorry. I-I don't know w-what to s-say."

 

"Hm, okay," Naruto walked over to Hinata and sat down in front of her, she was confused by the action. "Have a seat and let's talk."

 

"Uh, o-okay," Hinata slowly took a seat in front of Naruto, "w-what should w-we talk a-a-about?"

 

"Tell why you're doing the Hyuuga style," he got straight to the point.

 

Hinata looked down at her lap, "b-because I'm a Hyuuga. I'm the h-"

 

"Hold on, I just realized that I don't really care about that," Naruto stated bluntly, he felt Kurama mentally hit him again but ignored him. He would get the fox back for that later. "What I really meant to say is, how do you feel when you're practicing your style? Are you confident? Do you feel like it's hard to do? Like you're the only one not getting it?"

 

Hinata could feel that her eyes were being opened, but she couldn't believe it. All the doubts in her head about her training was being spilled right out of Naruto's mouth.  _How could he know?"_ If felt a little scary for her to admit it out loud, she didn't know if she could do it or not, but Naruto could see everything on her face already. 

 

He already got his answer.

 

"Alright then, since we got that settled, why don't you meet me here later on today? We can start with a couple of my basics and move on from there," Naruto got up from his spot and stretched his arms to the sky. "The things that you'll need will be one bathing suit, a towel, some change of clothes, and um..." Naruto was starting to rethink his sudden training plan a little, _"if we're going to be out here overnight, then we're going to need food. What do people usually eat on an overnight trip? I know I would usually hunt, but that's just me when I'm alone. Hinata's a girl and almost all the girls I've seen in the academy don't look like they give a shit about hunting, even if it would totally be a great way to learn how to become a tracker ninja later. Hmm..."_ Naruto looked down at Hinata who was still sitting down looking completely lost. "Mhmm, okay, bring some dumpling, red bean buns, and some other junk food people usually eat at sleepovers and meet me here at eight o'clock tonight. Later," he started to leave but Hinata called out to him.

 

"Wa-wa-wait! I can't come out tonight," Hinata said timidly, afraid that Naruto would hate her for not coming.

 

Naruto turned back to her, "why not?"

 

"W-well, t-tomorrow is the genin exams and father said he wanted to talk to me before I left tomorrow. Plus, I have a curfew," Hinata's face was beyond red by this point, she was truly impressed with herself for being so close to Naruto and not fainting before now. _"My 'special' training must be paying off finally!_

 

 

Naruto raised an eyebrow at her, "curfew? What are you, a civilian princess? Ninja's don't have curfews! If a ninja had a curfew, we couldn't be ninjas!" He said not really believing what he was hearing. "As a ninja, when we get a mission, we have to stay up late until after the midnight hours to make sure our client is safe while they're sleeping! We don't get paid if we have curfews!" 

 

"R-r-right, I-I-I'm s-s-sorry," Hinata said bowing her head to Naruto.

 

Naruto scuffed, "why are you being so formal? If you're really serious about being a ninja, I want you to find a way to sneak out tonight and meet me here for our first lesson. If you are one minute late, I will punish you. Every two minutes, your punishment will be doubled, understand?"

 

Hinata nodded her head, she was starting to get a little more afraid of what Naruto might do to her than what her father might. "Yes, I understand, s-sensei!"

 

Naruto was a little taken aback by the title, but then again, he offered to train her. Why shouldn't she call him sensei? "Good, I'll see you then," Naruto quickly left the area before Hinata could make up anything else to not come to the meeting.

 

Hinata lifted her head in time to see Naruto disappear into the forest. She sat up on her knees and sighed, "what have I gotten my self into?" She wondered as she slowly got back to her feet and gathered her stuff.  _"Then again, now I'll be spending a night alone with Naruto."_ He face turned bright red once more,  _"I hope I can actually make it thought."_

 

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**Hyuuga compound**

_Hinata's room_

 

Hinata was in her room packing a small overnight back. To ensure that she wouldn't be found out too soon, she backed training gear to go with her other stuff. She had some money of her own that would allow her to buy any extras snacks that she wanted. She couldn't ever have snacks whenever she wanted while at the compound, that's why any snacks she bought for herself would be well hidden somewhere in her room. She got all of her favorites, cinnamon buns, chips, chocolate covered strawberries, etc. she also wanted to get Naruto something too since she wasn't sure if he liked sweets or not. Now that she was ready to go, she had to find a way to get out of the compound tonight. "Okay, let's go," Hinata nodded to herself, she used her byakugon to check to see if the cost was clear before making a run for it down the hallway. as she drew closer to her chosen escape route, she saw that her father and sister was heading her way. She paused and hid quickly as they passed her by, as they got closer, she was able to hear some of their conversations.

 

"But father isn't the title of heir only ment for the firstborn?" It was Hanabi's voice, she sounded curious.

 

"Yes, it is. However, your sister hasn't shown the strength need to lead the clan in the future, so I would like to give it to you." Hiashi, Hinata's father and clan head, replied.

 

"How? I'm not firstborn," Hanabi pointed out.

 

"If your sister passes the genin exam tomorrow, then I will announce a match for the heiress to take place that day," Hiashi explained.

 

"But what if she fails?"

 

Hinata could just feel the smirk on her father's face, even if she couldn't see it. "Then the match will still take place, but the win would already be decided."

 

That seemed to be the end of their conversation as their voices slowly faded down the hall. Hinata slowly opened the sliding door of the room that she ran into before overhearing the conversation. She wasn't as depressed about hearing their plans as she thought she would have, but she could think about that after she got out of the compound. She left the room and continued on until she met the side of the compound wall closest to the back of the estate, she stepped back a few feet before using chakra to jump over the wall. She barely made it to the top, holding on by the tips of her fingers before she managed to pull herself up and over, after that, she took to the trees to make her way to the meeting point. 

 

**Meanwhile**

 

Hiashi and Hanabi entered the dining hall with the other main branch members. Hiashi looked around for his other daughter and didn't see her, he called over one of the branch members that was serving dinner for the others in the room. "Where is Hinata? It's already time to eat and she's not here."

 

"My apologies Lord Hiashi, but Lady Hinata stated that she wasn't feeling well when she came home earlier today. She said that she didn't want to be a bother and would be taking dinner in her room tonight," the branch member replied as he retold the tail that Hinata told him.

 

"Hm, very well, I'll have to see to her later, carry on," Hiashi then took his seat with Hanabi.

 

"Father, what if she's not well enough to fight tomorrow?" Hanabi asked.

 

"Then the title will go to you by default and Hinata will be disowned," Hiashi said coldly before taking a bite of his dinner. While Hanabi thought about what this could mean for her and her older sister. Even though they don't really get along very well, Hanabi still thought that her father was being kind of harsh to disown her sister. She thought about telling Hinata their plan but didn't want her father to be angry at her next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**To be continued...**

 


	4. Second chances

It was a little past nine o'clock and Naruto was just making his way into the clearing where he told Hinata to meet him earlier. A small part of him was expecting her to not show up at all. Another, slightly bigger part of him was expecting to be confronted by an angry mob of villagers at any moment now when it looked like he had let his guard down. And another part of him, even smaller than the first part, felt as if she would actually show up. She would be the first person, ever, to actually show up because he asked her too, however, he was leaning to the other feelings he was getting. It wasn't like he had much reason to believe in anyone anyways. Naruto reached the meeting point and stood next to a training post to wait.

 

Ten minutes went by and Naruto was irritated.  _"She's not going to show, I just know it."_

 

 **"Oh give her a break, kit. The Hyuuga compound is hard to break out of, I'd say she's already on her way after just barely managing to slip through the defenses placed around there."** Kurama commented, he was familiar with the Hyuuga compound set up back when he was in his other container, so he knew it would be a tough place for a (barely) genin to get out of. 

 

Naruto scuffed at Kurama's notion to wait longer but took a seat to keep waiting. Sure enough, another minute went by and Naruto could hear a small amount of rustling coming from the bushes. He stood up to get into a fighting position, he even took out a kunai just in case whoever it was were trying to attack him. He watched the bushes closely for a few moments, waiting for the person to come out of it until he saw ahead of midnight blue hair tumble out in a heap. It was Hinata, she was in the same clothes as before, she looked like she had been running from something or someone. Naruto just stared at her for a long while, watching as he dusted herself of the leaves that covered her and apologies repeatedly for being late. He really couldn't believe that this girl actually showed up, why?  _"Is she really serious about having me train her after all?"_ He wondered, he could feel Kurama smirking at him but he ignored it, for now, he squared his shoulders and folded his arms as he looked down at Hinata. "Didn't I say nine o'clock?" He asked.

 

Hinata jumped a bit when she realized that Naruto was now talking to her. He didn't really sound mad, even though his voice would make you think so. Instead, she felt that Naruto seemed a little more...surprised than mad. She took a chance to peek up at the blond, "y-y-yes, y-you d-did," she answered him seriously.

 

"If you were going to be late, then you should have just stayed home," Naruto stated and Hinata flinched a bit, curious, he continued, "you're a little over ten minutes late. Why."

 

"B-because..." She seemed to be thinking over her next words carefully when she finally decided on what she wanted to say to him, she lifted her head up to look him in the eyes. "Because I want to be strong too! I-I know I'm w-weak, and I c-can't do much right now, but...but I'm going to work really hard to become stronger!"

 

"Hmph, and what will you do when you finally become strong?"

 

"What will-"

 

"Don't repeat what I say, it's annoying. Besides, I'm not in this just to teach someone without a goal." He lectured, "in my life, I've found that having something to fight for gives me a reason to keep moving forward. I don't look back. I don't hold back. And I always keep my promise. That my ninja way, what's yours?"

 

Hinata was feeling inspired as she listened to Naruto talk. She didn't know what to say. What was her goal? She didn't want to be weak. But why did she want to b strong now? Wasn't she strong before? A flash of the conversation she heard before come rushing back into her mind and her face darkened. "I want to leave my past behind and make a new future for myself. I don't want the place that I came from to be the same as the one I'm going to," she clenched her fist. "I'm going to fight for what I believe is right and find my own path, and...and I'll never go back on my word either!" 

 

Naruto could see the fire in her eyes, it shook him a bit because it somewhat reminded him of his own eyes once. He nodded his head, having seen everything he needed in those eyes. "Very well," he took off the scroll he had been carrying on his back and set it aside. "You've impressed me with your speech...take off your clothes."

 

The distinct sound of a train coming to a screeching holt could faintly be head in both Hinata's and Kurama's head. Both were way too shocked to believe what they had heard, while the Kattcie in Naruto's mindscape was rolling with laughter.  _ **"**_ ** _Looks like I was right about this human boy, he's going to be very fun to watch indeed."_**

 

 **"Shut it Kattcie!"** Kurama barked, then turned to Naruto,  **"kit, what FUCK are you thinking?! You can't tell a girl to do that!! And with a straight face at that!"**

 

Naruto was getting a slight headache from the two spirits in his head,  _" what? I did tell her that her punishment would be ten times worse every few minutes she was late, didn't I? This way, she'll learn a valuable lesson."_

 

Kurama was done with his container. He always knew that Naruto wasn't all there in the head, and thought it was his fault. But now, who knows?  **"** **Whatever kit, just make sure you don't do anything reckless tonight. You both still have the exam tomorrow."**

 

Naruto mentally nodded to Kurama before turning his focus back to Hinata, who looked to be frozen to the spot. "Why haven't you undressed yet?"

 

"O-o-oh, y-y-y-yo-o-ou r-r-re-really w-want m-m-m-me t-to u-u-u-und-d-dress?" Hinata asked timidly and visibly shaking like a leaf.

 

Naruto raised an eyebrow at her, "well duh. this is part of your punishment. You kept me waiting for ten whole minutes before you came tumbling out from that bush. That's a long time to wait, I hope you know, in exchange for making me wait, you will do this lesson naked. No complaints, got it? Maybe next time you won't be so late."

 

Hinata's lower lip began to tremble, "d-d-do I-I-I r-r-really ha-have to-"

 

"Yes." Naruto interrupted her. "I told you ever two minutes that you wore late, your punishment would double. Since this is only your first lesson, I'm taking it easy on you by making you go without clothes for the first part of the lesson. Now hurry up."

 

"O-o-o-okay," Hinata said as she slowly took off her bag from her back and placed it on the ground. She then hesitantly started taking off her jacket to place it next to her bag, she reached for the edge of her shirt blushed, "a-a-aren't y-y-you g-going to t-t-turn a-around?"

 

"Why should I? This is your punishment, stop stalling." Naruto said as he yawned he then jumped a bit from what looked like a pain in his head, "ow, damn fox is gonna pay for that," he muttered threateningly under his breath.

 

"A-a-are yo-you o-okay?" Hinata asked worriedly.

 

"Tsk, fine, since it seems like I'm being insensitive, I'll take off some clothes too." He stated begrudgingly, he took off his jacket and shirt, "you can just keep your underwear on this time, but next time I won't be changing my mind."

 

Hinata wasn't so sure what just happened, but she did feel relieved that she could keep on her underwear after all. She took off her shirt, pants, and ninja armor and stood there in her underwear. She looked down at it and blushed even harder, now that she remembered she was wearing her favorite matching set of bunny printed underwear she bought for herself a few days before. She thought it would look cute on her, but one thing she didn't realize about the set was that the bra was a pushup bra which made her chest look even bigger.  _"Oh no, I forgot I was wearing these today, he's going to think they're childish,"_ she whined in her head, she looked up slowly to see what Naruto's reaction was. He had managed to take his pants and shoes off and was just putting them with the rest of his clothes, she saw his underwear was plain. Actually, they weren't just plain, they looked worn out, she could see there were some small holes and loose thread here and there,  _"Doesn't Naruto wear expensive things like Mito does? I mean, they are twins, but now that I think about, Mito's th only one I've seen wearing the latest fashion while Naruto mostly wears that jumpsuit all the time."_

 

"Okay, are you done?' Naruto called out to her, bringing her out of her thoughts.

 

"Y-yes," Hinata said hesitantly. She was only in her bra and panty, she wasn't sure if she was allowed shoes still since Naruto didn't put his back on. "W-what's next?"

 

"Hm.." Naruto looked up at the sunset that was slowly fading, "we're going to start with a quick and basic workout followed by a light run. I'm thinking about fifty each, let's start."

 

* * *

 

**A few hours later**

 

 _"That was not a light run!"_ Hinata thought as she gasped for air on the grassy floor. Naruto had just led her on a run through the forest where they had to jump, hop, climb and skip over many obstacles in their way. The run lasted about two and a half hours at a fast pace, at least for Hinata, nonstop. Where Hinata was trying to remind her lungs how to take in and expel air correctly, Naruto barely broke a sweat. 

 

Naruto tossed Hinata a bottle of water that landed next to her head. He drank his and waited for her to catch her breath a little more before he went on, "now that you're warmed up, we can start taking this seriously."

 

 _"That wasn't being serious?!"_ She wanted to say, but instead said, "wh-what did you have in mind?" She almost didn't want to ask.

 

Naruto sat down in front of Hinata with a pen and a notebook, Hinata decided that she would sit up as well. She didn't feel comfortable laying down in front of Naruto in just her underwear. She took a drink from the water bottle Naruto gave her as she watched him write down something in the notebook. "Okay, here's what I've come up with for you." He turned the notebook around for her to see, "you did well with the fifty set of pushups and stuff, so I'm raising it to one hundred tomorrow. I'm also going to build up some of your muscles by giving you some weights. I'm also going to work on your confidence some more, if you're going to become a good ninja, you can't be scared of every little thing."

 

"U-uhm, o-okay," she nodded, she thought that getting a confidence boost from her crush would do her well. "What are you going to do?"

 

Naruto thought about that for a moment. He knows that Hinata's shy and soft-spoken, so if he started with her shyness, then the rest would eventually fall into place right behind it. The question was, how to start? Then he realized that he hadn't really taken a shower yet after he got home earlier, no one was there, so he decided to take a well-deserved rest thinking that he would take a shower when he got up again. But then Mito had to come home and demand him to do all the chores that she didn't want to do herself. Meaning everything. By the time he got done with everything, it was already time for him to get going, he left a little early so that he could have time to shake his ANBU guards for a while before making it here. So he didn't get to take a shower or get any food. He told her that he was expecting her on time, so he could possibly be late if she wasn't. With that in mind, Naruto stood up and grabbed his stuff, "come on, get your stuff and follow me."

 

Hinata quickly got her stuff and followed Naruto, she wondered what he could have in mind for her this time. She followed silently like a ghost in his footsteps until they came upon what looked like a small hidden hot spring. "What is this place?" The surrounding area looked like it hadn't been touched by man yet. The heat from the water made a light steam against the cool night air, the steam camouflaged the area a bit to the point that anyone just coming in couldn't tell what this place was at first glace. The secret hot spring was cradled nicely at the back of a cave, the whole thing was in an area of the forest that Hinata hadn't been in before, she didn't know where she was at the moment since they walked pretty far away from the spot they meet at. The cave wasn't dark, although the sun was completely hidden away by now, they could both see perfectly around the cave. There seemed to be a natural light source placed in each corner of the spring, and some in the back of the cave that also showcased a small waterfall with steaming hot water coming from it as it flowed into one the rest of the water. Some fireflies were buzzing around close to the ceiling so they could see beautiful crystals hanging there. "Wow..." was all she could say as she took it all in.

 

"You like it, huh?" Naruto said as he walked over to one side of the large spring.

 

Hinata quickly followed after him, "yes, I never knew there was such a place out here. It looks peaceful."

 

Naruto shrugged his shoulder, "it's alright. It is peaceful though, I used to come here a lot when I was a kid, it seemed like this was the only place that I felt I could really let my guard down. I was always alone as a kid, Mito always got to be surrounded by friends and stuff, so it was always me playing by myself. I didn't mind though," he dropped his stuff off to the side and turned to Hinata again, "right, we're going to be practicing water walking now."

 

"Y-you know how t-to water walk already?" Hinata asked, even though they went over it in class, they were never taught the technic physically. Plus, Naruto was kicked on the day of the class just before the lesson could begin.

 

"Yeah, I cam here and learned it. It was sort of simple enough to get after a while. Let's start with taking a bath first and then I'll teach you how to do it," he said as he started to take off his underwear.

 

Hinata covered her eyes as soon as Naruto reached for his waistband. "W-wa-wa-wait! I-I c-c-ca-can't t-t-take a b-b-bath w-with y-you!" 

 

Naruto paused, he was starting to get over how shy Hinata was being, "why not? Aren't you sweaty after working out?"

 

"I-i-it's n-not t-that, I-I'm...I-I'm n-n-not a b-b-bo-bo-boy," Hinata was poking her fingers together and looking down at the ground again.

 

"Uh, yeah, I know. I know a boy when I see one, and you're not it, plus, you smell like a girl anyways so you don't have to tell me." Naruto then pulled down his boxers all the way and kicked them off to the side.

 

"T-That's not wha-EEP! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN!!" Hinata had uncovered her eyes a little to look Naruto in the eyes, but quickly covered them back up when she saw that he was no longer covered down there. "Why are you doing this to meee!"She softly whined to herself as her face turned into a tomato.

 

Naruto rolled his eyes at Hinata's actions and matched up to her, already starting to lose his patients. "Oh come on, that's enough. How do you think you'll ever get stronger if you're not used to the human body?" He ripped Hinata's eyes away from her face so she shut her eyes so she didn't look where she didn't want to, "seriously? What if you become a medic ninja or end up in a situation where you have to undress someone to help save their life one day? You can't cover your eyes and tell them to cover up, THEY'RE DYING!" Hinata could feel the blood in her head starting to reach its limit, she was about to faint soon. "Hinata, look at me," he held her wrist tight in his hands and got close to her face, Hinata hesitantly opened her eyes to look into startling beautiful blue ones, "if you can't get over something this simple...you're too weak to be my student."

 

Hinata's eyes opened wide, just as quickly as he offered her help, he was taking it away. A big part of her wanted to pick up her stuff and run back home to face whatever punishment was waiting for her. She just knew her father would have sent out ninjas looking for her, if he found out that she left on her own, her goose would be cooked. She wanted to run away even more now that she thought about it. However, as she watched Naruto turn his back and walk away from her, he legs wouldn't move, couldn't move. Was she really that weak? Why did she really come here? Because she has a crush on him? No, after what she just went through, she found that her little crush was starting to fade away into nothing, so why was she still here? "I want to be stronger..." Her lips answered her mins and in that instance, Naruto stopped in his tracks.

 

With his back to her, he asked, "what are you willing to do to become stronger?"

 

Hinata's head fell for a few seconds as she thought. She didn't want to be the same shy girl that couldn't speak up in class and tell others what was on her mind. She was starting to hate herself for being so weak in the first place. "Anything."

 

* * *

 

**The next morning**

 

 

Over the next couple of hours, Naruto told Hinata everything he knew about water walking and tree walking. He didn't go into detail about how he learned how to water walk himself, but he got her started on the technic. Hinata was far from getting it down in one night like Naruto might have, so he switched her to tree walking instead, or rather, wall walking since they were in a cave at the moment. As the hours went by, both Naruto and Hinata would practice walking up the cave wall, Naruto would make sure that he was either next to her or behind her in case she fell. And she fell a lot. And he caught her a lot. After a couple of hours of practice, the duo was starting to get tired, Hinata more than Naruto, and finally stopped for the night to take a bath. Hinata shared her snacks with him, even though she was still embarrassed for him to see her without her underwear or a towel around her, she realized something that she seemed to have been missing since they meet up. Which was:

 

Naruto didn't give a fuck if she wore clothes or not.

 

The realization hit a little later in the night, but it was an eye-opener. At first, it made her a little sad to think that she never had a chance with him in the first place, but maybe that was a good thing? If they were going to be doing this more often, then it might be good for her if Naruto was actually gay than straight. But it might not have been good for Naruto. Not many people know this about ninjas in the leaf village, hardly anyone knew this really, but Hinata once heard some branch members talking about a ninja who might have been gay. She didn't hear much of the conversation, yet she still got the message that gay ninjas were looked down upon in the village. She felt Sorry for Naruto, she's never seen him with anyone she could clearly say they were friends, but if he was going to train her, she wanted to be there for him. By the time they finally fell asleep, Hinata was already feeling a pretty big confidence boost just from spending a couple embarrassing hours with Naruto running around in their underwear and walking up walls naked. 

 

It sounds even more strange now that she was actually thinking about it T.T

 

 

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**T** **he Academy**

 

As Naruto and Hinata were walking up to the academy gates, Hinata turned to Naruto with a bright smile. She was still tired from the late night training, but the hot spring was giving her some energy, so she was just awake enough to get through the exam today. "Hey, Naruto."

 

Naruto yawned, "yeah?"

 

She stopped him as they passed through the gates, "thank you for your help, I'm feeling a lot better about myself know. I know I still have a long way to go still, but, well..." she bowed deeply before him, "I'll do my best to make your proud, sensei!"

 

Naruto yawned again, "no problem. You can repay me by showing up on time today."

 

He moved to walk around her but she stopped him, "wait."

 

Naruto grounded mentally, "yeah?"

 

"Uhm, I-I noticed tha-that you didn't look at me when I was, you know. So um, I-I just wanted to say, uh..." Hinata didn't know what she was trying to say.

 

"Did you...did you want me to look?" Aked the confused blond.

 

"Huh? No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm trying to say. I mean, um. Well, since you didn't look at me like how some other boys would have, I thought that it would make this easier. For both of us and...uh, well." She looked Naruto in the eye, determination on her face, "I'll support you no matter know you end up liking. You can come to me for advice too, and I'll help you out whenever you need it. I'm rooting for you!"

 

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"What drugs do you take? Are you feeling okay, Hinata?" Naruto asked after a long moment of silence went by between them. Then he noticed there the school yeard was completely empty, not a single student had come by to get to classes of yet, which made him curious.  _"Are they hiding or something? The bells about to ring."_

 

Hinata placed both of her hands on Naruto, getting his attention again. He could see that she was very determined about something, but he hadn't been listening so he was lost. "I'll support you and your boyfriend through thick and thin. You can count on me because we're friends now!"

 

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"...What?"

 

 

 

 

**To be continued...**


	5. Exams and teams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm skipping to the end of the exam because I don't feel like writing about it.

Naruto stared at Hinata for a long time, "um...okay..." he didn't know what to say, he really didn't have a clue. It wasn't like he was really hiding anything about himself, but, Hinata seemed to be just bold enough to call him out. Which was, even though not completely wrong, it wasn't actually right either. "Sooo, you found out, huh?" 

 

Hinata retracted her hands from Naruto's shoulders and nodded her head. "I, uh, read books about how guys would usually act around girls, and, uhm. You didn't even bat an eye when you saw me naked, so I sort of just assumed...uhh..." she poked her finger together, she was starting to feel embarrassed about just coming out and saying it. "A-a-am I-I w-wrong?"

 

Naruto blinked his eyes at Hinata, he put his hands in his pocket and shrugged his shoulders. "Not really." He scratched the back of his head, "uh, well, it's sort of complicated to explain. Oh, we better get inside before the bell rings, don't want to miss the test y'know?"

 

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have," she started.

 

"Uh, no, no. It's not you, uh, how about we talk about this after, I'll make sure to explain it better, 'kay?" Naruto turned around and started walking towards the building.

 

Hinata nodded, her cheeks slightly red as she followed behind him. She took a peek at him before averting her eyes again.  _"Was I wrong before?"_

 

**Meanwhile**

 

While Naruto and Hinata were talking, a certain someone managed to overhear the tail end of their conversation. 

 

* * *

 

**Later that same day**

_Last part of genin exam_

 

It was finally Naruto's turn to go into the room with Iruka and Mizuki. He watched Mizuki closely this time as he did his test, last time he saw a small gleam in the man's eyes when Iruka told him that he failed the test. Now, however, he wasn't going to give that bastard the satisfaction. "Okay Naruto, let's begin," Iruka said as he sat down behind the table with Mizuki to watch Naruto execute his turn. The first thing that Naruto did was replace himself with a chair. The one Mizuki was sitting on to be exact, however, Naruto only appeared behind Mizuki instead of under him. Mizuki didn't like that one bit, but Iruka seemed to be somewhat impressed by it. "Not bad, not bad, but don't make a habit of pranking your sensei like that if you pass. They wouldn't like you very much if you did."

 

Naruto rolled his eyes, "as if they liked him before." He stated as he replaced himself with the chair again, it was under his breath, but both chunin's heard it. Yet said nothing about it. 

 

Next, Naruto transformed himself into the third Hokage perfectly. Then came the most important part of the test, the clone jutsu. Even though Naruto just about mastered the shadow clone jutsu the day before, he found that the shadow clone and the regular clone differ in another way that is not power related. For the shadow clone jutsu, Naruto noticed that he couldn't summon any less than twenty clones at a time, plus, this jutsu caused a lot more smoke to appear with each clone. If he used it instead of the regular clone jutsu, Iruka and Mizuki would surely question him about it, probably already figuring out that he didn't actually do the clone jutsu but another one that was similar to it. This could cause a problem for him, however, if the only thing stopping him from doing the shadow clone version was the smoke and power input, then he..."Oh, I got it!" Naruto shoved his hand into his jacket pocket and fished out a smoke bomb.

 

"Got wha-NARUTO WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!" Came the scream of Iruka as Naruto smashed the smoke bomb down onto the floor without a second thought. At that moment, before the two chunins could get up and do a simple wind jutsu to get rid of all the smoke, Naruto did the hand signs for the shadow clones. It was a good thing that he had one last plain smoke bomb left in his pocket from a few days ago since both the smoke from the jutsu and the bomb blended together seamlessly. Meanwhile, Iruka found a window and opened it while Mizuki made hand signs for Great Breath, a wind style jutsu that cleared the smoke from the room. Both chunin turned back around to scold Naruto's apparently reckless actions when they were suddenly confronted with twenty Naruto clones. "Wha?" Was both of their reactions.

 

However, Mizuki was even more dumbfounded than Iruka was. Nevertheless, both ninjas were shocked to their cores. "How? When? Where?..."  

 

Both chunin stood there just staring at all the Naruto's that were now in the room with them. They were standing in a line so all could be seen and then counted for assurance. "Naruto...this is...this is...amazing! How are you able to make so many clones when you couldn't even make one yesterday?"

 

One Naruto shrugged, "it was hard at first, I will admit that much."

 

"But once I was able to stop and think about why it was actually hard, I started to break it down," said another Naruto.

 

"The clone jutsu was a jutsu meant to save a ninja from spending too much energy when on missions. So I thought if I just put less energy into it, it would work." A third Naruto climbed in. 

 

"However, after all this time trying to put in too little effort, I realized that I was not putting in enough energy towards the jutsu," said a fourth Naruto.

 

"And then it hit us," said another.

 

All the Naruto's spoke at once this time, which was kind of creeping Mizuki out. "We just put in more effort." 

 

Were his plans ruined now that Naruto was able to learn the clone jutsu? Would he have to rethink his plans? No! This couldn't be happening! He had to rethink his plans a little, but there was no way Naruto, the dead last, could have ever possibly learned that jutsu just like that!  _"It has to be the work of that damned fox! Even now, it mocks me with this childish form! But soon, soon I will have my revenge on it."_ Mizuki calmed himself down enough to come up with a quick fix to this, "surely, Naruto, that couldn't have been all it was, right? This must be one of your pranks right? How-"

 

"If this were a prank, it would be well thought out and colorful just like all of my other pranks. Even though this room is filled with way more orange than I dare say tolerable, I did not make a habit of joking when it comes to serious matters." Naruto said in a monotone voice, it was kind of chilling to hear. Even Iruka shivered from it a bit.

 

Said chunin then cleared his throat, "well then, Naruto. Seeing as how you're actually made a clone, or rather, many clones... I will pass you." He smiled at the student that he once thought would be the dobe for the rest of his life, _"now he might just have a chance."_ Iruka walked back over to the table and handed Naruto a headband, "congratulations, Naruto."

 

Naruto wasn't sure he was pleased with what he had done or if he was dissatisfied. Either way, he accomplished what he wanted when it came to the genin exams. He dispelled his clones and walked up to Iruka, he took the headband from the man's hand and stared at it for a few seconds. He did it, he had the headband, he was a ninja now.  _"With this headband, I will become a new person in the eyes of myself, and conquer all of my goals."_ Naruto unzipped his jacket, showing the black shirt he wore underneath and tied the headband around his neck, he looked up to Iruka with a determined look in his eyes. Iruka stared back into those blue eyes, memories of another blond faintly touched the back of his eyes, "sensei, after this moment, you can forget everything you knew about me before. From this moment on, I will be different. I will become a great ninja, just you watch." Naruto then turned away from his previous sensei and left the room.

 

The two chunin still in the room watched as he left. One was processing what this could mean for the future of the village.

 

While the other was plotting his downfall.

 

* * *

 

**Back in the classroom**

 

Before Naruto left to do his test, he told Hinata to wait for him to come back so that they could talk about earlier. She was curious about what he had to say. She had been wondering about it almost the whole day. "Sooo, Hinata, when were you going to tell me that you and my brother were a thing?" Came the smug voice of one Mito Uzumaki, Naruto's twin sister and current Konichi of the year. She had been watching Hinata and Naruto all throughout the test ever since Ino told her that she saw them walking out of the forest together, and then the classroom together. No one would usually pay any attention to either of them for different reasons, but to see the two together seemed to make heads turn.

 

"M-Mi-Mito, w-what are y-you t-talking about?" Hinata asked timidly, she cursed herself mentally She really thought she was getting more confident after spending time with Naruto last night, but it seems like a few hours wasn't enough to change her nature completely.

 

"Don't play dumb, Hinata. We all saw the two of you enter the classroom to get. And Ino hear you talking to him even earlier than that," Mito smirked, "so spill it. What's he got on you? Or are you two really a thing now? You couldn't possibly be hanging out with him because you want to. Riiiight?"

 

Hinata really hated the way that Mito liked to look down on people, especially the ones who seemed timid and weak. Like her. She wanted to stand up for her self, but could she really do that? Here? While everyone was watching?  _'If you can't handle something as simple as this, then you're too weak to be my student.'_ Naruto's words rung in her eyes and she knew that he was right, so Hinata decided to save herself for once, she turned to Mito who didn't seem impressed with her at all. That made Hinata even angrier, "that's none of your business, Mito."

 

"Ooh hoo hoo, so now the little princess has a little backbone, does she?" Mito asked sarcastically with a hand on her hip. "Well then, maybe you should just go out with him after all. You losers deserve each other."

 

Hinata's cheeks heated up for a few seconds at the thought of that, but then she remembered the night before. "It's not even like that!" She clenched her hands to keep from crying. Why did she suddenly feel like crying? She didn't know herself.

 

Mito laughed at Hinata's timid defense, "ha, see, you can't even deny it. You like him, but he's too dense to know it, so you ended up becoming his friend instead. How pathetic!"

 

"NARUTO WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!" Everyone's heads turned when they heard Iruka's hell and what sounded like a small bomb going off.

 

"Hahahaha, see! He can't even take the exam without messing it up in some way!" Mito laughed out and everyone joined her.

 

Hinata couldn't let Mito get her way. She couldn't let her talk about Naruto like that. So, against her own will, Hinata's hands flew out uncontrolled and collided with the side of Mito's face. Something that no one was expecting from the shy, timid, quiet girl that always sat in the back of the classroom. The girl that didn't like speaking up in class. The room went silent as the air around them seem to freeze. The hit was so unexpected that Mito had to touch her own cheek to realize that she was, in fact, punched. And it was by Hinata Hyuuga herself. 

 

By this point, the world had gone mad. Hinata throwing the first punch? Hinata looked at her fist, not knowing when she had made it that way,  _"was that really...me?"_

 

"How daRE YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME YOU, STUPID BITCH!! You're going to pay for that!!" Mito screamed, shaking Hinata from her thoughts. Hinata quickly went on the offensive and prepared to fight Mito for all she was worth. While Mito just started to throw punches and kicks wildly and as hard as she could, Hinata dodged them effortlessly as if she could see every movement perfectly in slow motion. She flipped onto one of the desks to get away from a kick that came too close to knocking the wind out of her when Mito followed her, Hinata waited for the perfect time to strike. "Stand still you ugly bitch!!" Mito threw another punch at Hinata, but she caught in one hand and sent a palm strike to Mito's abdomen.

 

"Eight Trigrams: Twenty-Four Palm!" Hinata hit Mito's center hard enough to send her flying, but she wouldn't let her go that easily as she followed her body across the room to do the first set of trigrams her clan was known for. If Mito lost her breath with just the first strike, then she had no chance of getting back up once Hinata was done with her. Once Hinata finished releasing her pint up anger on Mito's now unconscious body, she turned to the rest of the class, a stern look on her face, "anyone else?" 

 

Mostly everyone was shocked by Hinata's sudden display of strength and did not want to be next on her list. Looking at the heap that Mito turned into, they all shook their heads and averted their eyes from the (unknowingly dubbed by the class) Demon Princess. By this point, Naruto had walked in and was staring around confused by the sudden chill in the air. He analyzed the room and noticed three things.

  1. Everyone seemed to be a little spooked by something.
  2. His sister was passed out on the floor in front of the class.
  3. And Hinata was staring menacingly at them



_"Should I even bother asking what happened?... Hm... Nah, I'm sure she had what was coming to her by now. Mito should have known that bullying others would make them snap eventually. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now."_   Naruto walked up to Hinata as if nothing was happening between her and the class, "so, you want to leave now? Or should I come back when you're done glaring?"

 

"Hu-oh! Naruto, when did you get here? Did you finish your test okay?" Hinata asked as if nothing had happened. She didn't even stutter.  _"Maybe I'm only confident when he's around?"_

 

Naruto pointed to his neck with his thumb, "no duh, I got this headband to prove it, see. Now let's get going before one of these guys try something."

 

"Okay," Hinata quickly ran up to her desk and grabbed her bag to follow Naruto out of the room. Just before leaving, she sent the class another glare and left the room. As they walked the halls of the academy, she noticed that they were heading towards the back door, "uh, aren't we going out the front?"

 

"Nah, there are bound to be parents and other people expecting their child to be coming out of the building at any moment. I bet there are even some people from your clan that are stuck standing there waiting too." Naruto theorized, "it's best to go out the back door so we have a lower chance of getting caught."

 

"Oh, right," Hinata had forgotten that she had run away last night so that Naruto could train her. Her father might still be looking for her, and her punishment was more than likely getting worse every minute she's not there to face him.  _"That's a depressing thing to think about. What should I do, I definitely don't want to go home now. I wonder if I can live in the forest or something and just meet up with Naruto and train without having to go back home."_

 

Naruto glanced back at Hinata for a long time as they head to the back of the school. He could read her thoughts just from the look on her face. He was fairly sure he had some idea of what she might be thinking. Taking a shot in the dark, he asked, "you...you want to sleep over at my place tonight?" Hinata looked up at the blond in questioning, wondering if she had heard him clearly. Naruto looked away from her, instead, choosing to stare out the passing windows in the hallway, "I mean, I have a separate place that I call home. I don't actually live with my sister, she only thinks we do, but I actually have my own home that I sort of built myself. You can come over anytime you want, I spend more time there anyway, I most go home ones or twice a week though, just so Mito doesn't get suspicious or whatever. Uhm...yeah, so, do you...want to?"

 

Hinata had stopped walking while Naruto was talking, making him stop and turn around to see her reaction. He hoped he wasn't making a bad move or something by telling her this, but the look on her face was making him feel sorry for her. Hinata, on the other hand, just was shocked. "Seriously? Can you read minds or something?" She asked dumbfounded.

 

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, "no, not really. But I can read faces, you were talking pretty loudly with yours so..."

 

Hinata sweatdropped,  _"so he was only reading my expression? How could he get all that from just a look on my face?"_ She wondered, but said, "okay. But...uh, would you mind if I live with you for a while, I mean just until I save up enough money for my own place. I don't want to bother you or anything."

 

Naruto scratched the back of his head, again, wondering what he was getting himself into. "Uh, sure, stay as long as you like. From what I heard about Hiashi, he's really mean, so I get it."

 

"Yeah," Hinata nodded with a sad look on her face, "but he wasn't always that way."

 

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"Hm, let's get going. I need to get food for the house since you're moving in temporarily." Naruto turned away and walked off to the back door, he opened it and held it for her as she quickly caught up to him.

 

At the same time, there was a certain raven that had followed the two after they left the classroom. He watched as Naruto held the door for Hinata. He had a longing look in his eyes as he watched the blond disappear behind the back door. He wished that he could be in Hinata's shoes, but wasn't about to let a silly crush decide his actions. They were only feelings, feelings tend to change over time. This saddened the raven-haired boy, but he forced himself to turn away from the view of the back door to head back to class. Unaware that the blond he was just staring at caught a glimpse of him before the door shut completely.

 

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Sasuke Uchiha was walking home later that night after some of the parents had dragged him out to celebrate with him, seeing as how he was alone and all. Sasuke tried to refuse, really he did try, very hard, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. He laughed when he thought about the looks on the adult's faces when they found out from their kids that Naruto had passed the exams too. They were so shocked. He was a little surprised too, but above all else, it didn't matter to him. He was a ninja now. He had better things to think or worry about other than dealing with Naruto also becoming a ninja. Speaking of being a ninja, there were some perks that new genin got to enjoy once they were official ninjas.

 

Dinking happened to be one.

 

Yes, to celebrate the "Last Uchiha" becoming a ninja, everyone at the bar bought Sasuke a drink. He didn't want to be overly rude and not take what was given, one drink wouldn't hurt, right? But it wasn't just one drink. One turned into two. Two turned into three. Three, four, five, six, seven, and then he couldn't keep count anymore. Every time he looked down, the cup in his hand was already refilled. By the time he finally was able to escape/level, it was already twelve passed midnight and most of the streets on his way home were dark and empty. Not a soul in sight as he tried not to stumble or trip as he walked. His vision was heavily affected by the alcohol in his system and he couldn't fathom the thought of normal vision before the blurry, shaky, uneven one he had gotten used to seeing now. As he was nearing the gates of his clan estate, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Was he being followed? Or was that just the alcohol talking? 

 

NOPE! He was being followed.

 

The first way he found this out was when a pair of hands came out from nowhere and clamped his mouth shut. The second was when he was pulled into a dark alley. Sasuke realized that he couldn't see couldn't see all that much in the ally because of how tall the surrounding buildings were. The moonlight was only to catch glimpses of the person that had attacked Sasuke and the clouds above seemed ready to mourn him because of it. Sasuke's never felt more scared in his life, he hadn't realized he was shaking at the time until his attack pointed it out to him, "what's this? The great Sasuke Uchiha's shaking in the face of danger? How exciting," Sasuke felt a hand on him and he tried to fight back. However, his movements were slow and sluggish and he was feeling weak and tired from all the drinking. He wasn't confident that he would win if a fight were to break out right at that moment, and for the first time in his life, he wished someone would come and save him. "No one's coming for you way out here, it's way past midnight, everyone's already gone to their beds!" The man laughed at Sasuke as the boy unknowingly whimpered under him, "now be a good boy and I promise you'll enjoy it soon."

 

"No! No, let go!" Sasuke tried to fight back, but his weak, slow arms and slurred voice was no match for this stranger. Whoever it was.

 

"Aw, don't be like that, you're gonna hurt my feelings." The man laughed as he started ripping off Sasuke's clothes piece by piece until they lay in a shredded heap on the ground next to them. Sasuke tried to kick him, but the man already made his way between his legs. Sasuke could feel the man's hands all over him and didn't like it at all. He wasn't to punch and kick and scream until this man was playing in a puddle of his own blood. But with the way the stranger had positioned himself, Sasuke couldn't fight him back. "Here comes the best part, my boy. Are you ready?" The stranger whispered in Sasuke's ears as the boy felt something hard pressing against his back entrance. Sasuke tried his best to fight even harder, but the man had a good hold on him, keeping down right where he wanted him. He held Sasuke's arms together above his head and hand one hand on his waist as he thrust himself into the young boy's body all at once. Sasuke screamed out in pain and anger as the man repeated this action harshly, over and over until Sasuke had tears in his eyes, and still, the moonlight could not help him see who was responsible for his pain. Sasuke's suffering lasted what seemed like forever, the pain seemed never-ending, and briefly, Sasuke wonders if it really was until he felt something hot explode inside of him. Sasuke was disgusted with the man, but even more, so that he allowed it to happen until this point. He blamed himself and now wanted nothing more than to know who this person was so he could get his revenge on him.

 

No one rapes Sasuke Uchiha and gets away with it!

 

But after all the screaming, the yelling, the pain, and thrusting, Sasuke's body were failing him. He was too tired to keep his eyes open, he was blacking out, but he could tell. The ally was so dark and he couldn't see already. He heard the man's voice once more, "that was fun, we should do it again sometime..." As the voice was fading, the moon finally got a glimpse of silver-white hair as the man left the alleyway. Sasuke committed the sight into memory so he would never forget. 

 

Then he passed out.

 

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**To be continued!**


	6. The dance of the sealed fox

"Good job Hinata, you're doing good. Keep this up and you'll get to eat dinner tonight!" Naruto said happily as he kept up his light jog in front of Hinata. While Hinata, on the other hands, was only barely keeping up. Since they had a full week off before being assigned teams, Naruto has been tor-teaching Hinata the best way he knew how. Ever since Naruto let Hinata move in with him, he has been finding a way to turn almost everything into training. Even if it wasn't training related. In the mornings, Naruto would wake up Hinata at three-thirty on the dot so that she could run up and down the stairs at least thirty times and do twenty sit-ups and push-ups before he allowed her to have breakfast. After breakfast, Naruto would make her go on a five-mile run, do fifty push-ups, sit-ups, and ten burpees. Before Hinata could sit down for lunch, or even think about it, Naruto would tempt her with a gourmet meal, however, the only way she could actually get the meal was if she could climb the tallest tree that Naruto could find, without falling. The meal would usually be tied up at the very top of the tree, Hinata would also have to cut the rope and catch the food before it fell to the ground. The first few times he made her do this, the food was just barely saved. If she couldn't save the food before it hit the floor, she would only get half a sandwich to encourage her to do better next time. For dinner, Hinata was usually more than ready to kill Naruto because he would make them go on a fifty-mile run and do thirty burpees, with weights, in order for her to earn her meal. Dessert would require extra miles. 

 

Also, since the two of them got their hairbands, neither of them could be seen anywhere in the village at all. Spending almost all their time training in the forest. Hinata had yet to step one toe back into the Hyuuga compound, and Naruto hasn't been seen at him either. Some of the villagers were starting to wonder what was going on between the two, most making up rumors about them falling in love and running away together somewhere since it wasn't much of a secret that Hinata liked Naruto. Others speculated that the Hyuuga heiress was somehow being controlled by the demonic beast that they thought Naruto to be. Either way, they wouldn't get their answers until someone was able to track the two down and ask them themselves. Which, if anyone in the village actually knew Naruto, they would know that finding the said blond when he didn't want to be found was near impossible. The Hokage took note of this and has decided to act accordingly, unlike the other villagers, the old man actually liked the blond boy and thought it was more than great that he finally found himself a friend. While other folks were plotting ways to kill Naruto so his influences couldn't be further spread through the newly christened ranks of genin.

 

Something else that Hinata found out about Naruto other than he was an absolute slave driver when it came to training. Was that he was pansexual. Seeing as how no one in the academy took the time to explain to them all the different sexes and sexualities out there, Hinata had to find out what that was on her own. Naruto did his best to explain it to her in simple terms. 

 

**Flashback**

 

_"So, what did you want to talk about, Naruto?" Hinata asked after they left the academy._

 

_"Oh, right," Naruto said as he scratched the back of his neck again. "Well, as I said before the test, I'm not gay. Well, not really. I'm what's called a 'Pansexual'."_

 

_Hinata looked at him confused, not having heard of something like that before. The furthest she knew on sexual orientation was what the academy taught them about. Which happened to be gay and straight. They never talked about sex more than what seemed to be needed, making it clear to them, or at least her, that anyone gay was looked down upon. So hearing about something like pansexual was completely new, "what's a pansexual?" She asked._

 

_Naruto could blame Hinata, the lost look in her eye was clear to see. For the leaf, ninjas seemed able to do anything they want, to a point. So he tried to explain it simply, "uh, well, Kurama once told me that being Pansexual means that i'm more comfortable being with just about anyone I choose. Their biological gender wouldn't matter as long as I have a connection I could be with anyone."_

 

_"Uuh, s-so does that mean that you would like me even if I was a boy that wished was a girl?" Hinata had heard of people like that, she's never met one before, but she heard of them._

 

_Naruto nodded, "yep. If you were born a boy or a girl and dressed like a girl or a boy, I wouldn't care. Do you understand?"_

 

_Hinata nodded her head slowly, "yes...I think."_

 

_Naruto turned back to walking, "okay, good. I'll let you borrow some books that helped me out when I was confused too."_

 

**Flashback end**

 

Now that Hinata was thinking about it, Naruto had said something that caught her by surprise.  _"Does Naruto have a friend no one knows about?"_ She wondered, seeing as how when you live in a small area like a village or an island, word travels fast. Information usually travels through the network of moms and teenage girls with nothing better to do than to talk about people's business when the said person is not around. At the current moment, Hinata was laying on the ground after finally completing all the required tasked she needed to do in order to be feed for the night. Her muscles were screaming at her and she sort of cursed the day that she asked Naruto for his help, but her curiosity was getting to her. Using what little strength she gained back, she managed to turn her head to the side to look up at Naruto who was sitting next to her. She swallowed some hair so could speak, "w-who is...who is Kurama?" he asked better gasps of air.

 

"Hm? You say something?" Naruto asked as he looked over at her, he hadn't been listening and missed the sound of Hinata's soft, tired voice. 

 

"Who's Kurama?" Hinata asked again, this time with her breathing a little more under control. Naruto seemed to not register what she was asking, "three days ago...you said Kurama told you that you...were pan. Who is he?" She asked as she tried to sit up, she turned to face, "his he a friend of yours?"

 

Naruto looked at Hinata for a long moment before nodding his head, "yeah." He looked up at the starry night sky, "he's the one that pretty much raised me since I could remember, he taught me everything I know, from learning how to talk, talk, read, right. Everything. He's like a father to me."

 

Hinata could see how close Naruto was to this person just from the look in his eye. The way Naruto spoke of this Kurama person made Hinata smile, "you know what, Naruto?" 

 

"Huh, what?" Naruto asked as he looked back at Hinata.

 

"You're smiling right now, that's the real one, isn't it?" She asked she pointed to his face when she saw the confusion in his eyes. "Every time I saw you in class before, I always thought that you were putting up a mask of some kind, but I would never put my finger on it. Until now, all your smiles from before were fake...This is your real one."

 

Naruto put a hand on his face to see what she meant. It turned out that he was actually smiling, he didn't even realize when he let it slip. He was smiling a real smile for the first time in a long while, now that got him thinking.  _"Has it really been that long since I smiled like this?"_

 

Kurama jumped into the conversation,  **"you know, kit, it's been almost three whole days since you had to put up an act in front of those villagers. It's just you and the girl out here, so you feel more at ease."**

 

 _"Is that right?"_ Naruto thought over Kurama's words carefully,  _I guess so."_

 

 _ **"Either that or you just want you first student to see your true colors,"**_ commented the Kattcie, reminded both host and beast that it too was still there.

 

 _"Whatever..."_ Naruto left his mind and stood up abruptly just in time to startle Hinata.

 

"Is it something I said?" She asked curiously.

 

"Oh, no, it's nothing. Uh, come on, let's get back home, the clones should be almost ready for us." Naruto told her and started walking away, when he didn't hear Hinata's footsteps behind him, he looked back to see why. "Is something wrong?"

 

"Um, well, if you don't remember, we actually ran sixty miles tonight instead of fifty like before. And, well..." Hinata rested her hands on her legs and blushed, "my legs sort of fell asleep once we stopped running. They're more like jelly than legs now," she chuckled.

 

"Wait, sixty miles! Really? I could have sworn it was only fifty!" Naruto sounded surprised because he actually was. Sixty miles, he could run longer, but he was trying to be considerate of Hinata. "Oh man, sorry Hina, you feeling okay though? Can you stand?" He asked as he walked back over to her.

 

"Uh, sort of, well, no." Hinata had tried to stand, but her legs wouldn't move, "it actually feels like pins and needles. But it doesn't hurt that much right now." 

 

Naruto sighed, "I guess I was thinking too hard. Get on my back, I'll carry you back."

 

Hinata shook her head but Naruto insisted. "Okay, since you offered," she got onto Naruto back with a little help and they started their walk back home. As they were walking, Hinata asked, "you seem a little distracted today, is everything alright?"

 

"Yeah, I was just thinking about someone," Naruto answered after a few moments of silence.

 

"May I ask who?" Hinata asked, then regretted it when Naruto didn't say anything after, "you don't have to tell me if-"

 

"My brother. Well, he's not really my brother, we've never even met, ever. But I know he's out there. There are sisters too, not like Mito, but there are sisters." Naruto started cryptically, "you don't know them, I don't think. The brothers and sisters live far away, hidden away. They're pretty strong too, and one day, I want to free them of their burdens. Or at least make it easier on them. That's what I was thinking about," the two fell silent once more for a long time. 

 

They were almost home when Hinata asked another question, this one made Naruto stop in his tracks, "can I help?"

 

Naruto thought for a long time, standing still, unmoving, like a statue. "You'll need to get a lot stronger if that's what you want to do. I won't stop you...but I might test you," he didn't say anything more than that as he found the rest of the way home in silence.

 

* * *

 

**The next day**

 

The week was almost up and Naruto found that Hinata seemed to be taking her training even more seriously than before. He didn't ask why, she had her own reasoning, so he would let her keep it to her self. He already told her his terms when he accepted her as his student, so he will let her find her own inspiration to keep moving forward. On the last day before the two had to go back to the academy, Naruto decided that he would start testing her. The first step of his plans started with knowledge, knowledge of the day he was born. It was dinner time and Naruto had just carried Hinata back after training. From what he could tell, she was pushing herself to her limit, even though that was what he was expecting, he didn't want to burn her out before he even got down to teach her some of his jutsu.

 

"Hinata, what do you know about the day the Kyuubi attacked?" He started talking after they sat down to wait for his clones to finish making dinner.

 

Hinata answered how he expected her to, "just what was taught in class. The fourth Hokage defeated the Kyuubi and saved the village, but died in the process."

 

Naruto nodded, "yes, but here's what you don't know..."

 

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**The Academy**

 

It was there first time back to the academy in about a week and all the genin hopefuls were not prepared to see Naruto and Hinata walking into class together, again. Not only that, but both of their outfits were drastically different from what they were used to seeing them in. Hinata was wearing some black shorts that came down to her mid-thigh. She had on a black top underneath a light green jacket that was half zipped so the blacktop could be seen, the jacket had a large red swirl on the back. She also wore her headband around her neck like Naruto, but her headband was a dark green instead of the usual blue. Naruto's clothes of choice were not as revealing as Hinata's, and there wasn't even a hint of orange on him anywhere. Naruto wore a plain black t-shirt with baggy black pants, he also changed out the color of his headband for a dark green one to match Hinata's. Before coming into class today, Naruto and Hinata had a nice little talk about ninja dress code and decided that it was time for a change in their wardrobe. Being the ninjas they are, Naruto and Hinata both managed to sneak into Mito's room while she was out with her friends, as usual, and stole some of her allowances. Being the supposed "Stare Child" that the villagers thought she was, said villagers would hand out money to Mito just because. Naruto never got this treatment and thought that it was Mito started paying back the money she owed him for treating him like a servant almost all his life. It wasn't like she would miss much of it, the villagers were always handing out money to her for something or the other so who cares? With they had gotten in and out in a matter of seconds, it was very late at night, so no one really saw them. With the money, Naruto and Hinata used the shadows of night to break into a random ninja gear shop and started taking everything and anything that they felt they would need to become a ninja. 

 

It wasn't like anyone giving out this stuff to them for free anyways.

 

The two of them got enough stuff to supply a small army and then some. Including clothes, they probably stone thousands of ryo in gear, but they left all the money they took from Mito to pay for just about everything they took. So really, they weren't actually stealing in a way. They just didn't have a recipe for the things that they now wear. 

 

When Naruto and Hinata sat down, Shikamaru decided that he would quell some of his own curiosity. "Hey, Naruto, Hinata. Where have you two been for the past week? It's like you disappeared from the village all that time."

 

"I don't really see how it's any of your business what we do on our own time." Naruto started, "but since you asked, we were training."

 

"Seriously? I didn't think you two would train together?" Shikamaru stated in an interesting manner, "so I guess you passed the exam then, Naruto?"

 

"Oh no, Shikamaru, I'm just here to support Hinata while she finds out who her teammates will be. There's no way I could have passed that insanely hard exam," Naruto said with exaggerated sarcasm at Shikamaru's expense. He chuckled when the Nara gave him an annoyed look, Hinata then elbowed him in the rib and gave him a look. "Alright, alright, relax Hina, I was only joking."

 

"You better calm down Mr. Fluffy Butt, we don't need you starting a fight with anyone on assignment day. Especially not someone who could be my or your teammate." Hinata whispered to him.

 

Naruto grunted at his nickname, "I thought I told you never to call me that in public. Ever!" He hissed back at her.

 

Hinata smirked, "I'll stop when you stop waking me up at three a.m. in the morning."

 

"I told you that was for training," Naruto shot back.

 

"Training my butt, you know you just want to see me naked after waking me last time. Pervert," they weren't yelling, but they were talking just loud enough that Shikamaru heard everything they said. The rest of the class, however, had to strain their ears to hear them.

 

"I told you it wasn't like that in the first place. And if you didn't want me to see them, then you shouldn't be sleeping like that in the first place," Naruto folded his arms in front of. "Besides, I already saw you like that before, remember?"

 

Hinata did remember and she couldn't help but blush, while Naruto smirked and Shikamaru was starting to feel a little more than uncomfortable just standing there. Just then Kiba seemed to hop up the steps until he was standing next to Naruto and Hinata's desk. "Ah ha! I always knew you were up to no good, dobe! Now I know you're nothing but a pervert!!" 

 

Kiba's voice was so loud that people from the other classes were able to hear him. Naruto gave him an unimpressed look, "what are you talking about dog breath This is an A and B conversation, C your way out of it." 

 

"Oh yeah, real original, dobe. That's the oldest one in the book," Kiba commented as he folded his arms in front of him.

 

"Whatever," Naruto rolled his eyes. "No one was even talking to you, so why are you over here?"

 

"Because you're a PERVERT! Hinata said so herself! What gives you the right to spy on a girl while she's naked anyways!!" Kiba asked as he pointed an accusing finger at Naruto.

 

"What a drag, Kiba, you're blowing this way out of proportion." Shikamaru said in a bord voice, then turned to Naruto and Hinata, "and why are you sneaking into Hinata's room to wake her up so early for anyways? Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"

 

Naruto rolled his eyes, "seriously, it's my house, I can do whatever I want in it. Besides, Hinata was the one to come to me, so she already knows what's up."

 

Both Shikamaru and Kiba were confused. So a third person came into th conversation, this person so happened to be Shino, who was actually sitting in the row right under Naruto's. "If I may ask something," Shino stood up and turned to the four students behind him. "I think it's a little odd that Naruto would head all the way over to the Hyuuga compound every morning at such an early time just to see Hinata in a state of undress. Would I be correct to assume that the two of you have been sleeping over at each others house for the past week?" 

 

Shino's presence had startled Kiba because he wasn't paying attention. And Shikamaru, because he forgot that the bug user was still there. Naruto and Hinata seemed to be unfazed though. "Yes, that would be correct, Shino," Hinata answered.

 

Shino nodded, having gotten his answers. He decided to stay standing to see what else would happen. He has also come to notice over the years of being in this class, no one usually noticed him if they were already caught up in their own conversations. He has gathered much information like this over the years since he was easily forgettable, it hurt to know, but it was a useful misfortune.

 

"So wait, does that mean that the rumors are true? Are you two really living together now?" Kiba asked skeptically.

 

Naruto and Hinata looked at each other for a few seconds before shrugging their shoulders, "maybe." Was their answer and it pissed Kiba off.

 

"Maybe? Maybe! What kind of answer is that?! Its either you are or your not, which one is it?!" Kiba asked as a low stomping noise could be heard in the distance.

 

"I don't see why you really need to know so bad, Kiba. It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything," Hinata said coldly.

 

Kiba tried to ignore the hurt that passed through his heart when he heard that. "Yeah, well...so, it doesn't matter. Why are you with a guy like that anyway? It's not like he's Sasuke or anything!"

 

At the sudden mention of his name, Sasuke's ears perked up and he decided to listen in. He would decide later if he needed to step in to say something or not. By this time, everyone else in the class was actively, and openly listening to everything that Naruto and Hinata had to say on the matter. In the meantime, the low stomping of feet in the background slowly started to get louder, but no one was paying it any attention. 

 

"I don't see why that matters to you either," Naruto chimed in with a bord look on his face. "I care less what you think of me, and comparing me to that weakling is laughable at best." 

 

A tickmark showed on Sasuke's forehead, but before he could say anything, his fan club came to his defense. "You take that back about Sasuke-Kun!! After everything, he's been through?! You should be ashamed!!" Yelled one of them.

 

"Yeah, it's not like you have anything to whine about, at least you still have your sister at your side!! Poor Sasuke-Kun is all alone!" Yelled another.

 

"Besides, he actually tried to become a ninja! You must have cheated to get where you're at now!!" Screamed another.

 

Naruto rolled his eyes again, "it doesn't even matter how I got here, I'm here now and that's all I care about. Anyone who cheats to get ahead in life while others struggle is scum worthy to thrown out!" He stood up quickly and released some killing intent when another fangirl was starting to say something. "For your information, I don't actually have a sister by my side because she's always off playing airhead princess with her friends while I'm left to do the real work by myself! And since you want to bring Sasuke into this, I just have one thing to say about his lazy ass." He looked directly at Sasuke as he spoke, Sasuke decided that he might as well looked the blond in his eyes to hear everything he had to say. Naruto smirked, "anyone that would rather take handouts is nothing but a power-hungry slut that might as well sleep with strangers to get by in life!"

 

Suddenly Sasuke snapped as he remembered everything that happened the other night. He tried so hard to block it out, but it kept replaying in his mind everytime he closed his eyes. He hasn't gotten a good nights sleep since then and has been working himself to the bone just to distract himself from the horrid memory. "SHUT THE FUCK UP DOPE!! You don't know anything about me! You're the dead last, the bottom of the barrel, you could never dream of making it to my level!!" By this point, Sasuke was standing and shouting at the blond, while some kids from the neighboring classes started coming over to see what all the noise was about.

 

The air in the room was charged with tension, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Shino smartly took a few steps back from Naruto just in case Sasuke wanted to hop the desk to make a point. Naruto was unfazed by Sasuke's outburst and name calling. He was used to it by now anyway, he got up on his desk so that he could properly look down at Sasuke, "you're weaker than you know! I know everything about the Uchiha clan and all of their weaknesses." He licked his lips in anticipation, he's been wanting to put Sasuke in his place for a long time now, if there was anything that he hated more, it was a cocky brat like Sasuke. Mito was a close second. "If you're feeling froggy, then jump, I'm ready to knock you do anytime, anywhere."

 

"Big words coming from a dobe, I'll show you what a real Uchiha can do!" Quicker than any of the other students in the room could fathom, Sasuke started doing the hand signs for the famed, "Phenix Fireball Jutsu!" He spits a huge fireball at Naruto with the aim to kill him, but before the ball of fire could hit, Naruto made hand signs of his own. No one heard what the jutsu was called because of all the screaming that was going on. Suddenly, the ball o fire was frozen and was already turning into steaming water, the steam filled the room, while everyone else was trying to open the doors and windows to let out all the steam, Naruto moved. He moved faster than anyone could see, even if the room wasn't filled with hot steam. In an instant, Naruto was already across the room, the sound of metal on metal was heard, the room went quiet. When the steam finally cleared...

 

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"I think that will be enough of that from the two of you..."

 

 

 

**To be continued...**


	7. Team 11 pt. 2

Iruka and Mizuki had just gotten the final draft of the genin line up from the Hokage's office and were reviewing it as they walked down the hallway. As they looked over the list, they noticed that the Hokage had made a few changes to the list that they had originally sent in. "Huh, I thought there would only be nine teams this year, not ten," Mizuki spoke.

 

"I thought so too." Iruka agreed, "since our class has an odd number of students, I was sure that one team would be bigger than the other."

 

"I suppose one of these teams isn't really a regular team. I wonder what this kid's sensei's gonna do when the chunin exams come around." Mizuki wondered as he looked over Iruka's shoulder to see the list. As he was looking over the names, both instructors heard an increase in noise coming from down the hall. When the looked up, they weren't all too surprised to see that their class was only one door down from where they were now. However, what did surprise them, and worry Iruka a little, was the fact that there were two crowds of students at both doors to the classroom. 

 

Iruka quickened his pace, with Mizuki trailing behind him. Once he was closer to one of the groups of kids in the doorway, he noticed that there were three of his own students still standing out in the hallway instead of in class. "Mito, Sakura, Ino? What's going on here? What's with all the noise?" Iruka asked the three girls that were also trying to get a peek inside.

 

Ino was the first to respond to their sensei's wondering, "Sakura, Mito, and I was just making our way to the class when we heard a bunch of noise and saw this crowd. We don't really know what's going on other than there's a fight between Sasuke-kun and Naruto. 

 

Sakura turned around to add in her unwanted two cents, "I bet it was Naruto that started the fight in the first place. I know because is voice was the loudest one I heard," she said folding her arms in front of her. Even though it was actually Kiba's voice that she was hearing, she couldn't really tell the difference and decided that it was Naruto's voice just because.

 

Suddenly Mito gasped as the steam filled the classroom, all the kids looking on at the door quickly moved away from the door so that they wouldn't be covered in the steam. The steam itself wasn't hot enough to burn or hurt anyone in or around the room, but it was hot enough for them to think it would have. The sound of metal on metal was heard and everyone held their breath, waiting for something else to happen, even the other chunin's that had come out of their rooms looking for their own students. Everyone in both the hallway and Iruka's classroom was trying to see through the steam to know what had just happened. Some were expecting one of the boys, mostly Naruto, to be badly hurt in some way from what they had just heard. 

 

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"I think that will be enough of that from the two of you..."

 

The last of the steam disappeared from the room to show a jonin standing on the desk between Sasuke and Naruto. He was holding Naruto's wrist in a way that would make it difficult for him to break free of his grip, Naruto didn't seem all that fazed by this. As if he was expecting this to happen at some point, to which the jonin holding him became curious, but decided that he would leave it for later. In the captured hand, Naruto was holding out a kunai pointed directly for Sasuke's chest, the fangirls gasped in shock. The jonin in question had gray, gravity-defying hair, he was dressed like the usual jonin would be, except his headband was covering one of his left eye. The jonin looked around the classroom, surveying all the kids around him, each one of them had varying levels of shock and awe on their faces. It was only Sasuke's face that showed surprise and distaste for what just happened, while Naruto's face remained unimpressed and neutral.  _"Well, this is new,"_ he thought as he made mental notes.

 

"Kakashi? What are you doing here?" Iruka asked as he entered the room with Mizuki on his heels. 

 

Kakashi turned a lazy on the tanned teacher, "oh, I was just passing by when I saw the windows to this room open and bunch steam came out. At the time, I thought it was probably smoke or something, so I rushed over to check it out. It turns out that I arrived just in time or else young Sasuke over there would have been toast." He jabbed a thumb in Sasuke's direction, to which the 'last' Uchiha wasn't too pleased about. Kakashi didn't really care about that, so he turned his real attention to Naruto, "what I would like to know was why you were aiming a blade at Sasuke in the first place. Were you trying to kill your fellow ninja?"

 

"Hm, killing him would have been a waste of my time. I was only testing him, and he failed spectacularly." Naruto spoke as if he wasn't being held by a superior officer.

 

"Testing him huh? Then why did it look like you were trying to kill him?" Kakashi shot back in a bored tone as he put away the kunai he had used to initially stop Naruto's attack before grabbing his hand. Since everything seemed to have cooled down now, he might as well put it away now.

 

"Like I said, this was a test and he failed." Naruto was sticking to his story, that much could be seen.

 

Iruka decided to jump in there since this was his class and they were still his students for a little while longer. "Naruto, would you care to explain what the hell is actually going on here? Why were you two fighting this time? And why would you point a kunai at Sasuke like that?..." Iruka then finally noticed that Naruto wasn't wearing even a shred of orange on him today, "and where did you get those clothes?"

 

Everyone else seemed to notice Naruto's new clothing choice again since the fight distracted them. Mito broke through the crowd of body and eyed up Naruto from head to toe, "yeah, dobe, where'd you get those clothes from? They don't suit you at all," she said with both hands on her hips.

 

Naruto rolled his eyes at her, "like I should care what you think. These are _my_ clothes, on _my_ body, so I can wear whatever I want."

 

"Oh yeah? Well, where did you get the money to pay for those new clothes anyway?" Mito asked, "it's not like you have any money that I know of."

 

"Yeah, that's the problem with you," Naruto said, "you don't even know me, and we're supposedly _twins._ Why don't you stop acting like my mom for once and get a life." Naruto then went up into smoke, shocking everyone in the class, even the Kakashi that was positive he had a firm grasp on the young blond. Mito blinked at the spot that Naruto was just in, she swiped her had at the spot only to hit the air, she looked around to see if she was the only one that saw what happened and to see where her brother actually was.

 

Iruka was just as confused as Mito was, "what was that?" He asked, mainly himself.

 

"Was that the shadow clone jutsu?" Mizuki wondered out loud, "when did a brat like him learn a jutsu like that?"

 

Iruka shook his head, "I don't know. But we should find him first before we can ask. I'll l-"

 

"No," Kakashi stated, the two chunin looked over to him, "you've got a class to run. I'll go look for him, I have a couple things I would like to ask him for myself." He then disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

 

"Right, well, everyone please take your seats." Iruka said clapping his hands to get everyone's attention over all the whispering that had slowly started to fill the room after Naruto revealed that he was testing Sasuke. He clapped his hands again, "if any of my students are not sitting down in their seats by the count of five, I will fail and make you write a three hundred word easy on what you did wrong today. As for the other students that trickled in, please make sure you follow your own sense's back to your respective classrooms." Iruka waited until everyone did what he asked, the students turn genin were now more co-operative now that they were finally leaving the academy life behind them. Once everyone seated, Iruka took out the least he had received, "I will now be calling out the teams and names on those teams. You jonin sensei will pick you after lunch. Team one..."

 

While Iruka was calling out names, Hinata felt something brush her knee. She took out a small book that she was carrying on the inside of her jacket and looked down. She saw a head of golden blond now resting on her lap, she brought the book closer to her mouth so it was covered. "You sure made a scene," she whispered.

 

Naruto turned his head so that he was facing Hinata's stomach and yawned. "I told you I hate people that try to get power for selfish reasons, didn't I? Sasuke needs to know his place."

 

"Maybe, but know all his fangirls are probably going to try something," she noted this from all the occasional glances to the window the said fangirls were doing. Hinata sweatdropped, "if it was anyone else, I would be worried."

 

Naruto smirked, "but it's not anyone else, so I'll be fine." He adjusted his head on Hinata's lap, "by the way, we're starting jutsu training after we meet our team."

 

"Team? How are you sure we're on the same one?"

 

"I snuck a peek while every else was distracted. Our team's number 11, listen out for it while I take a nap," Naruto then closed his eyes while Hinata continued to read her book.

 

* * *

 

**A few hours later**

 

It has been a couple hours since lunch ended and the jonin started coming by to pick up their teams. No one was told the name of their jonin because the Hokage knew that most of the sensei's picking up their students this year were well known. Some more than others, so he didn't want the genin he assigned to those students to make up any assumptions on their new sensei's. Even if all the students didn't know what their sensei's looked like, a lot of them have heard their names before and word would surely spread through the class before the person even walked through the door. Another reason why the Hokage didn't write down the name of the jonin for each team was that of the element of surprise, each team was picked with a pacific function in mind as well as a few expectations. Hiruzen couldn't wait to see which teams would live up to those expectations and which ones would be left in the dust. As they were waiting, the remaining fangirls in the room were still on the lookout for Naruto. Not knowing that he as still sleeping comfortably on Hinata's lap.

 

It was starting to get late into the evening and there were two teams, technically, that had yet to be picked up yet. "Arrr, where is that damn sensei? He was supposed to be here hours ago." Said Sasuke the impatient one.

 

"Why don't you calm down, Sasuke? Our sensei hasn't come yet either," Shikamaru said with a yawn.

 

Sasuke growled at the lazy Nara, "like you should talk. I don't want to be grouped in with a bunch of lazy slackers like you, especially since one of your teammates haven't even come back to face me yet."

 

"Really? Who said he ever left in the first place?" Shikamaru asked as he leaned back in his chair.

 

"What?" Sasuke asked as he looked around, "if that's the case, then why hasn't he come out to face me yet?" 

 

"Maybe because he doesn't want to deal with your shit," Hinata spoke up for the first time in a while. Both Sasuke and Shikamaru turned their heads to look back at Hinata. Shikamaru was surprised that Hinata, a Hyuuga, let alone the heiress of the Hyuugas, would ever cuss like that.

 

While Sasuke had nearly forgotten that she was there. "That reminds me, why are you and the dobe spending so much time together later? Does he have something on you?"

 

Hinata lowered her book a little to look at Sasuke, "that reminds me, why were you so offended by Naruto earlier? Do you like sleeping with strangers for money and didn't want people to know about it?" 

 

Shikamaru was now even more shocked, by her attitude and her comeback.  _"I_ _t's almost as if she's a different person now. I wonder what happened to her during the past week, she was never this bold before the exams. Was she?"_

 

While Shikamaru was analyzing Hinata's behavior change, Sasuke was getting out of his seat. Since it was already so late that Iruka and Mizuki had already gone home for the day, the four students were left in the class alone to wait. It had already been an hour and a half since team nine, consisting of Chouji, Ino, and Mito already left with Assuma, Shikamaru was also left to wonder what happened to the next 'Ino-Shika-Cho' trio of his generation. 

 

"I don't like you attitude Hyuuga, you want to say that to me again?" Sasuke asked.

 

"Why should I, are you hard of hearing?" Hinata asked as she stared Sasuke down.

 

Sasuke grunted, "slut."

 

"At least I'm not a power hungry hoe," Hinata raised an eyebrow at Sasuke, wondering what his next move would be. She was also a little nervous, she didn't want Sasuke to find Naruto on her lap firstly because of how embarrassing it would be. Secondly, the last time those faced off, Sasuke almost burnt the room down to make a point, not even caring that there were innocent people still standing around them or the fact that the area they were in was an inclosed pace. Thankfully Naruto stopped the fire before it actually did any damage to the room or the people in it. 

 

"You-" Before Sasuke could say anything else or make another move, the door to the class opened to reveal a man dressed in jonin gear. 

 

The man at the door looked around the room to see only four students were left. "Um, are you four team eleven?" He asked them.

 

Shikamaru, for the first time in his life, quickly got to his feet. "Yep, that's us. Let's get going Hinata." he left his desk and started making his way down to the front where their supposed jonin sensei was waiting.

 

Hinata closed her book as shook Naruto's shoulder. "Hey, time to wake up, our sensei's here," she gently told Naruto.

 

Naruto slowly opened his eyes, "hmm? Okay." He forgot that he was still under the table as he got up and hit his head with an audible thump. The noise alerted everyone in the room, even Shikamaru, who was able to sense the blond's chakra enough to know that he was still in the room, but wasn't sure where exactly he was. 

 

The jonin at the door looked at Hinata questioningly as she stood there. "Is he hiding from something?" He asked, trying to figure out why a genin would be under a girls desk.  _"Unless he was trying to see something...no, I should probably give him a chance to explain himself before I make up my own. But still, it is a bit weird of him to do such a thing."_

 

Naruto slowly crawled out from under the desk and stretched his arms. "I wasn't hiding from anything, I had to wake up really early this morning and I'm still sleepy," he said with a yawn.

 

The jonin nodded his head, accepting the story somewhat. "Okay, well i'm the newly appointed jonin sensei of team eleven. Sorry, I'm a little late, I just got back from a long mission and was just bereft on my position only an hour before." He explained shyly, "I would have been here sooner, but I ran into my senpai who was looking for a missing genin."

 

Shikamaru connected the dots but said nothing on it. Hinata also made a guess and said nothing. Naruto shrugged his shoulders, not even caring either way. "So it looks like our sensei showed up before yours, Sasuke," Naruto smirked as he walked passed the Uchiha. "I guess I'll be seeing you around then."

 

Sasuke was fuming as he watched Naruto walk away from him as if nothing happened. "Fight me, dobe, I know you want to," he tried, but Naruto kept walking.

 

"I really don't want to waste any more unnecessary energy on you today, so let's just put a pin in it for today. Okay, Uchiha?" Naruto yawned again as he stood with the rest of his team, his back towards Sasuke, "so where are we going sensei?"

 

"HEY!! DON'T IGNORE ME!!" Sasuke said as he ran forward making hand signs to throw another fireball at Naruto.

 

But  _he_ was the one that was caught by the jonin this time before he could cause another fire. "I think that will be enough from you, Sasuke. I'll make sure to let your sensei know about this the next time I see him." He held Sasuke in an iron grip with one arm behind Sasuke's back and the other held him by the shoulder. Sasuke 'tsk'd and turned his head away from the others, the jonin held him for another second before letting him go. "okay, team, let's head out."

 

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Naruto, Shikamaru, and Hinata sat across from their jonin sensei. They were in one of the training fields, so that led them to the conclusion that their sensei was probably going to test them in some way. "Okay, let's start by introducing ourselves. The name's Yamato, you can call me sensei or captain, either one is fine with me." Stated the jonin, "let's start from left to right, I would like to know everything you've learned in the academy and everything you've learned on your own, as well as your likes and dislikes."

 

Starting on the left, Shikamaru sighed, seeing that he was the first one. "The names Shikamaru Nara, in the academy I learned the basic three jutsus, clone jutsu, transformation jutsu, and replacement jutsu. I also learned the basics of casting genjutsus and how to get out of low leveled traps, as well as some basic taijutsu. I know the first stages of my families shadow manipulation jutsu and how to come up with a good strategy." He yawned, "I like watching clouds, hanging out with my friends, and taking naps. I dislike troublesome situations and people."

 

Yamato nodded and turned to Hinata. "My name's Hinata Hyuuga, I learned the same academy jutsus as Shikamaru. I know all of my clan's jutsus and taijutsu technics, but I'm not very good using any of them yet. I am able to use my eyes as the rest of my clan does. And on my own..." she glanced at Naruto, who nodded his head at her, "I know how to do the tree climbing exercise to some extent and I'm learning the water walking technique too. I like hanging out with my friend, Naruto, training, and cinnamon buns." She smiled as she thought of her favorite snack, then frowned.

 

"Is there something wrong Hinata?" Yamato asked.

 

Hinata shook her head, "no, not really. I just dislike when Naruto makes me climb mountains and stuff in order to save my food." Her frowns got deeper as she turned to glare at Naruto.

 

Shikamaru and Yamato looked between Hinata and the blond that was not denying the accusation. "Okay, moving on. Naruto?" 

 

Naruto yawned, he was still tired from the early morning B'n'E. Not to mention that Kurama and the Kattcie kept him up most of the night after talking with Hinata during dinner. Sometimes he really wished he had a way to turn down the volume in his mindscape. Somethings were just not meant to be heard in a young boy's head. "Naruto's the name and learning is my game. I've picked up quite a few things over the years and it would take a long time for me to list everything that I've learned, so I'll tell you a few of them. Water walking, tree climbing,  _shadow_ clone jutsu, taijutsu, some genjutsu, and some chakra manipulation jutsus. I don't like a whole lot of things, but what I do like is learning something new and teaching someone who has the same mindset as me. I dislike quite a few things."

 

Yamato nodded his head, "right, so it seems that two of you have already moved ahead of my planned schedule, that's good. Now we can move onto some actual training. Do any of you have any questions?"

 

Shikamaru raised his hand. "Uh, yeah, I do. First, where the heck did you learn water walking and tree climbing from, Naruto?"

 

"A friend," Naruto answered.

 

Shikamaru seemed unconvinced but wasn't going to push the issue further. "Okay, second," he turned to Yamato, "is this the part where you test us to see if we're worthy to become your new team?"

 

Yamato chuckled, "yeah, well, here's the thing. I was going to do that, but after I read your files and then met you in person, I don't feel like I really need to test any of you." Shikamaru and Hinata were a little confused because they were fully expecting Yamato to spring a test on them. Yamato shrugged his shoulders, "honestly, I think we would do well as a team, but if you would like a test, then how about a wager instead?" 

 

"A wager? You mean you want to bet against us?" Naruto asked.

 

"Hmm, sort of, but not really." Yamato stepped forward and took a seat in front of his new students, "I bet that if you three aren't able to become a fully functioning team that can work together through almost any situation within a months time. Then I will have you all resigned to your team of choice." 

 

Naruto was interested in this bet, "and if we are able to become that kind of team within a months time, what do we get?" 

 

"That's a good question, what would you like?" Yamato asked he wanted to see what they would choose instead of choosing something for them. If the price was too high, he would try to renegotiate to something simpler.

 

Naruto thought for a moment, he looked to Shikamaru and Hinata, since he wasn't the only one on the team. t was called teamwork for a reason. "What would you guys like?"

 

Hinata thought, "how about a day at a nice hot spring?"

 

"I don't know, maybe something else, like a day off to do whatever we want?" Shikamaru suggested.

 

"Hmm, how about our first C rank mission?" He asked. Hinata looked unsure, and Shikamaru seemed to be thinking about it. "Okay, Shikamaru, it might sound troublesome, but, if we take a C rank, we would be free to leave the village for an extended amount of time. Also, on the way back, we could also stop at an inn to rest, we could have tons of time to watch clouds on the way back too."

 

Shikamaru frowned, "why does it sound too good to be true when you say it? It could be more of a drag than we signed up for."

 

"It might not be, Shikamaru," Yamato answered. He was knowledgeable about Nara's and their lack of interest to put in too much effort into anything unless it was important. So he kind of knew an enough to persuade Shikamaru, "even if the mission does turn out to be troublesome when the time comes. I am willing to give you three an extra day off when we get back to the village, does that sound better?"

 

Shikamaru still didn't seem to want to do it, "C ranks get paid more than D ranks." Hinata jumped in, "and the more challenging and dangerous C ranks go to the chunin first so we would most likely get the easier ones anyways."

 

Naruto frowned at that information, he had been kicked out of class on the day that Iruka was explaining the mission ranking system and how it worked. Now he sort of wished that he had stuck around by the door to listen in on the lecture. However, this was enough to get Shikamaru to agree to the bet, seeing as how he got to pick between choosing a new team and having more time to himself to look at one of his favorite things: the clouds. "Alright, I'm in."

 

"Great, let's meet back here tomorrow morning at seven so we can get started on our training." Yamato said as he got back to his feet, "we will be starting with the chakra exercises; tree climbing and water walking, then move on from there. I suggest you guys bring bathing suits, towels, and a change of clothes for water walking. See you tomorrow," Yamato then disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

 

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you guys tomorrow, see ya," Shikamaru said as he got up and stretched his legs.

 

"Wait a minute, Shikamaru," Hinata called out to the Nara heir.

 

Shikamaru turned to her, "what?"

 

"Well, earlier, at lunch, Naruto and I were talking, and we were thinking that it would be a good idea if he helped you learn better chakra control," Hinata explained.

 

Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders, "sure, he can help tomorrow. Later," he walked away from the two, unknowingly sealing his fate.

 

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**Meanwhile...**

 

Back at the academy, Sasuke was still waiting for his personal sensei to show up. It was getting dangerously close to sunset and the sensei had yet to show up. Sasuke was still sitting at his desk, patiently waiting, when suddenly the door to the classroom finally started to open. A head of gray gravity-defying heir peeked through to have a look around. The said jonin was half expecting to hear someone angrily shout out  _YOUR LATE_   at the top of their lungs. But instead, he was almost maimed by three shurikens that embedded themselves into the wall just inches from his head. The jonin was also expecting to see three angry eyes spearing into his very soul as if they were trying to burn him alive, but instead, he only got one piercing stair. And it was just as firey to look at.

 

"Um, is this it?" Kakashi asked.

 

Sasuke's glare darkened even more, "you're late."

 

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**To be continued...**

 


	8. Missions and secrets 1

**The next day**

 

 

A few minutes before it was time for Shikamaru to wake up, he was awakened by the sound of something hitting his window. Rolling over on his side, Shikamaru over to his window and saw nothing. He waited for a few seconds and nothing happened, so he went back to sleep. Yet, when he rolled back over, he heard something big hit his window, the sound shook him from his resting state and he sat up. He eased over to his window and peeked out, just in case there might be there, he didn't want that person to know that he was awake now. If the person, whoever they are, didn't know he was awake, then he might be able to find out what was going on. Looking out his window, at first he didn't see anyone, until he looked at the area under his window, at first he wasn't sure if he was seeing it right, but upon closer inspection, his eyes were correct. Standing underneath his bedroom window was Naruto and Hinata, Shikamaru decided to listen in on what they were talking about, seeing as how they were the ones that woke him up. He opened his window and listened to their conversation.

 

"We shouldn't bother him Naruto, it's still pretty early," he heard Hinata say. From the sound of her voice, she sounded pretty tired herself.

 

 _"A better question is, why are they always together now? It's like they're joined at the hip,"_ Shikamaru thought.

 

Naruto turned to Hinata, "oh come on Hinata, it's not even that early. It's almost six-fifty anyways, so why not get there early?" He reasoned, "besides, this is the first time I've been on a team, I want to make the best of it before we disband." Naruto then reached for something in his pocket and showed it to Hinata, something that Shikamaru couldn't see. "I think, as a team, we should try to be the best that we can be, and that starts with traying, so I made us these."

 

"What are these?" Hinata asked curiously.

 

"Something to help us train." Naruto said happily, "would you like blue, green or purple?" Shikamaru didn't see which color that Hinata picked, he was a little curious about what it was that Naruto supposedly brought for them. "I guess the green ones for you, Shikamaru," Naruto said before turning around to look up at the window. 

 

Shikamaru was a little surprised at that, but he brushed it off. "What are those things?" He asked as he leaned on his window sile to look down comfortable at his two teammates. He still couldn't see what Naruto was holding.

 

"You'll have to come down here and see for yourself," Naruto said with a smirk on his face.

 

Shikamaru sighed, "troublesome. I'll be down soon, just give me a few minutes to get ready." Naruto gave him the thumbs-up and he left the window. Seeing as how this would be their first official training together, Shikamaru was hoping that they don't do anything too troublesome, but he doubted. After taking a shower, brushing his teeth, getting dressed, and putting some money in his pocket to by some food later, he was finally ready. Shikamaru was just putting on his other shoes when there came a knock on his front door, he also hears some footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. He finished putting on his shoes and looked up to the steps to see his father standing there, "hey dad, did I wake you?" 

 

Shikaku scratches the back of his head, trying to wake up. His hair was undone and he wasn't wearing a shirt, to anyone that was looking could see his well toned eight pack. Shikaku yawned, "a little bit. I heard someone moving around in the house and went to check on you, but you weren't in your room." He looked at his son fully as he stepped off the last step, "where are you going so early in the morning? No, actually, why are you up so early anyway? The son I know would be sleeping until noon, or at least until your mom came to kick you out of bed for breakfast," he smirked.

 

Shikamaru frowned, "whatever, it looks like my team came to get me up."

 

"Your team huh? I didn't think Ino could get up at this time," Shikaku said as they heard another knock on the front door. "Coming," he started walking over to the door to open it.

 

It was then that Shikamaru realized that he hadn't told his parents about who is teammates were. He knew they were expecting it to be the second generation of Ino-Shika-Cho, so they didn't ask him about it when he came home yesterday. "Actually dad, it's not Ino and Chouji that are on my team."

 

"It's not?" Shikaku asked as he reached for the doorknob and opened the door, "then who-" the older Nara paused his sentence when he got a good look at who was standing at his front door. The laid back clan hair stared at the two new genins for a few seconds, "um, Hinata Hyuuga and Naruto Uzumaki...what can I do for you two so early in the morning?" It seemed that the surprise visitors were making Shikaku's brain wake up and start working on putting the dots together.

 

But who could blame him?

 

The man did just wake up after all.

 

"Oh, good morning, Lord Nara, how are you this morning?" Naruto said in a neutral tone as his eyes took in Shikaku's full form.

 

"Er, erm...g-good morning...Naruto..." Shikaku felt a little-naked standing there while the resident jintchuriki looked him over from head to toe.

 

"Um, sorry for waking you, Lord Nara," Hinata jumped in, "is Shikamaru ready?"

 

"...Ready for...?" Shikaku turned around to see Shikamaru already picking up a bag to leave.

 

"For training," Hinata supplied. "We're supposed to be at training ground eleven soon."

 

"...Oh..." Shikaku still wasn't sure of what was really going on. He thought for sure that Chouji and Ino would be his son's teammates ones they left the academy, but why was Naruto and Hinata on it instead? It was clear that he wouldn't get any answers just standing here, he would need to go to the source.

 

"Okay, I'm ready," Shikamaru said, "what was that thing that you were talking about earlier?" Naruto took his eyes off of Shikaku to grin at Shikamaru. He pulled out something from his pocket and showed it to Shikamaru. It looked like a regular bracelet that could either be bought from any regular store or made by hand. "A bracelet? I got out of bed for that?" Shikaku snapped out of his slight daze to focus on what was going on in front of him.

 

"It's not just any bracelet, this's ones special. I made it by hand last night when I knew you were going to be on our team." Naruto took Shikamaru's thin wrist and slipped on the small craft. "I designed a special something on it that will help you get stronger and control your chakra better."

 

"Hm, what did you put on it?" Shikaku asked as he got down to their level to look closer at the bracelet given to his son.

 

Naruto went back to being neutral to Shikaku, which made the man feel a little offended, but he knew better than to take it too hard. After everything heard the villagers do to the blond, Shikaku couldn't blame him for not being too friendly with anyone other than his team. "Something to help him train better," was all Naruto gave him, Shikaku frowned but backed off the subject to just look at the bracelet in general. It didn't look all that special, it looked like a green piece of plastic hanging from Shikamaru's wrist. He couldn't see any identifying marks or any kind, no charms, or engravement. Nothing that could be distinguished from any other plastic wristband out there.

 

Shikaku got back to his feet, "okay then, I let you three get going now." 

 

"Hey, dad, can you tell mom that I left this morning?" Shikamaru asked, "I don't want her to come looking for me and stuff. See ya later."

 

Shikaku waved at his son as he watched them leave the compound.  _"If she knew who your teammates where, she would still hunt you down."_ He thought to himself,  _"but, seeing as how you'll be on the same team as Naruto, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad. That kid can use as many people on his side as possible,"_   with that thought, Shikaku closed the door and went back to bed. He would need as much rest as possible if he had to deal with his wife finding out about this later.

 

* * *

**At the training grounds**

 

 

At the training grounds, Naruto, Hinata, and Shikamaru arrived just seconds before Yamato shushined onto the field. "Good, everyone's here, let's get started." Yamato looked around the grounds to see if he could find a good spot for everyone to practice, he pointed over to a spot with some trees that surrounded a largish pond. "We'll start over there. Since it seems that Naruto is well versed in tree climbing, I would first like to see how long he hand last on water walking, as for the rest of you, I will be watching you as you start your tree climbing. If at any time either one of you feels like you're not getting something, you are welcome to ask me or Naruto for some advice." 

 

"Yes, Sensei!" The trio said in unison.

 

For the rest of the morning, Hinata and Shikamaru tried their best to learn how to walk up a tree while only using their chakra to keep from falling down. While they did that, Naruto chooses to focus on some meditation as he used his seemingly endless supply of chakra to stay afloat at the center of the pond. Hinata was getting the hang of tree walking, she could almost make it up the tree without having to take a break or falling off. Shikamaru, on the other hand, wasn't anywhere near Hinata's level. He wondered how long she had been practicing this exercise. He figured that he might as well put forward some effort seeing as how both of his teammates seemed to actually do more than lay around looking at clouds all day, unlike him who did that daily. Yamato watched as Hinata was slowly reaching the top of the tree she picked to use that day, he could see that she was starting to wobble a bit as she got closer and closer to the top of the tree. By this point, Shikamaru had finally managed to climb a little higher than the center part of his own tree and would no doubt catch up with Hinata soon enough. Although, he was starting to slow down his efforts just as much as Hinata. Yamato turned an eye over to Naruto who was still effortlessly floating over the center of the pond. Having seen enough, Yamato called out to them to take a break, he had seen enough to guess where their chakra control was at and wanted to get some feedback from them to see how they felt about their own control. "Okay everyone, let's have some lunch while we talk."

 

Shikamaru walked over and collapsed on the ground, nearly dead on his own feet.

 

Hinata, having a little more stamina than him thanks to Naruto's tireless training over the past week, didn't exactly through herself onto the ground as he did. She actually managed to stay sitting upright because of it, although, she definitely was tempted to lay down at the moment.

 

Naruto walked over and just sat down normally, unfazed by the light training session they just went through.

 

However, Yamato could see a light beading of sweat on his forehead, "since you guys did so well, I think you all deserve a treat." He took out a scroll from his weapons pouch and laid it on the floor in front of them, he did a hand sign and with a puff of smoke, a small feast was laid out before them. 

 

Shikamaru looked up at the blanket of food sitting in front of them hungrily. "Is that for us?" Hinata asked what he was thinking, but she seemed to look even more hungry than Shikamaru. Maybe because either of them had any breakfast that morning.

 

Yamato nodded, "yes it is." He confirmed, "have as much as you like."

 

"Thank you," Hinata and Shikamaru said truly thankful, they didn't know if they had the strength to go into town to get their own food or not. They were more than happy that Yamato brought them lunch, they let him know this by grabbing their fair share of food and started eating.

 

Yamato smiled at the two but noticed that Naruto didn't get anything Yamato brought. Yamato sighed, "I guess you're not hungry, huh Naruto?" He asked as he picked up a cup from the spread and proud himself something to drink from one of the two pitchers he had sealed into the scroll.

 

"No, I'm not trying to be rude to you, sensei. However, to be completely honest with you, my experience with people giving me free food is not pleasant." Naruto said as kindly as he could, he didn't trust any food that he didn't make himself or watch being made in front of him. 

 

"Seriously Naruto? How bad could it have been?" Shikamaru asked truly curious.

 

"Once, when I was three, a man came up to me and gave me a lollipop. About an hour later, I was spitting up blood and blacked out," Naruto said as he took out a handcart to wipe the sweat from his brow. "I heard whispers and people laughing somewhere from the shadows just before I hit the ground."

 

Naruto's explanation weighed heavily in the air. "That can't be true, right?" Shikamaru looked deep within the blond's eyes, he couldn't see any lies in them and was surprised. He felt a bad taste enter his mouth as his brain tried to imagine the scenario in real life. It disgusted him so much that he no longer felt hungry.

 

Hinata stayed quiet as she let the information sink into her mind. She remembered the story that Naruto told her the night before. 

 

**Flashback**

 

_Naruto sat across from Hinata at the dinner table. HIs face was serious, the aura in the room seemed thick with tension. Hinata looked deep within Naruto's steely gaze, getting lost in the ocean of blue. "That night," he started to speak. "The night that I was born was the same night that the Kyuubi attacked. To some people, they might think it was just a coincidence, but to a lot of people, they think it was just bad luck. A curse to be born on a night when so many were killed. The truth about that night is, I was there, with the fox. The same time that the fourth Hokage had supposedly killed the demon beast that attacked this village, was the same time I was branded a monster."_

 

_"What do you mean?" Hinata asked, "why would people think you're a monster? What about Mito? Wasn't she born that night as well?" She was confused because the last time she checked, Mito always seemed to be surrounded by people that liked her while Naruto wasn't. She always found her self-wondering about that every time she got some time she saw the twins._

 

_Naruto clasped his hands in front of himself. "You would think so, yet, Mito was already born months earlier. No one knew about her birth though, she went unnoticed for months until the night that I was born."_

 

_"But wait...how could you know this?" Hinata asked skeptically._

 

_"Because I found both of our birth certificates a few years ago." He explained, "when I looked at the date, I saw that Mito is actually nine months older than me. But, since we were still close in size, someone decided to classify us as twins instead of letting people know the truth. The only reason I found them was because I mistakenly took them one night when I was looking for something else in the Hokage's office."_

 

_Hinata raised an eyebrow at that, "you snuck into the Hokage's office? How? Why?"_

 

_"Yes. I have my ways, and the why doesn't matter. I said I was looking for something and that's all you really need to know for now." Naruto said, waving off her question, "anyways. That night, when I was born, the fourth had left a message for me to figure out about that night. He had written a code on the back of my certificate, I guess he thought that I was the only one who could figure it out."_

 

_"What did he want to tell you?"  Hinata asked curiously._

 

_"I'm not exactly sure, I was only able to decipher half the message and it said something about sealing the Kyuubi into someone. He said that this person is supposed to be seen as a hero or whatever, but I couldn't find out who that person was from the half of the message I was able to figure out so far." Naruto sighed, a sad look came onto his face, "sometimes when I'm walking around alone, I wonder if that person was me..."_

 

**Flashback end**

 

 

The room filled with silence and the smell of a freshly cooked meal. Hinata, even though she was hungry that night, she didn't eat much. Her mind was too occupied with the information that Naruto gave her, it might not have been much. Yet her mind was trying its best to absorb it. By the time they said goodnight and went to bed, Hinata had made up her mind to still stand by Naruto's side.

 

Even if what he said might be true...

 

 

The area fell silent for a long time before Yamato spoke up, "well, it's a good thing that I'm not one of those people." He smiled kindly at Naruto, "you have my word as a ninja of the leaf village that I will protect all of my students with my bare hands until I draw my last breath." Yamato meant each and every last word he spoke, Naruto could see that much. But he said nothing, instead, he picked up a red bean bun and slowly ate it. Yamato was pleased by this and turned to his other two students, "make sure you guys eat well, we've still got a lot of things I want to cover with you guys." Shikamaru and Hinata nodded at their sensei's request and continued to eat in silence.

 

 

 

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**To be continued...**

 


	9. Missions and secrets 2

**One month later**

 

As the days went by, Yamato was not very surprised by how well his team was coming together. The said to be normally lazy Shikamaru was putting just a little bit more effort into his training than he suspected he would have if he was on any other team. Yamato supposed that Naruto's influence had a little something to do with that, seeing as how Naruto would make sure that both the Nara and Hyuuga were putting in some time of effort into their work. Naruto didn't seem picky on that front though, maybe because Yamato was there to also reinforce most of the teams training habits on a daily basis. Hinata, the rumored stuttering shy type he had heard about before taking on the team, had yet to stutter since he met her. Yamato suspected that Naruto also had a little something to do with that as well. Speaking of Naruto, Yamato couldn't so much outward change from him since becoming his sensei. However, from the report, he was given and all the warnings he was told to look out for by the other jonin and his previous sensei's, Naruto was completely different from what he was told. Instead of being the loud, obnoxious, slow on the uptake idiot everyone seemed to make him out to be, the Naruto that was on his team was not like that at all. Instead, Yamato observed a quiet, calm, thoughtful, and caring young boy that worked hard. Yamato wasn't sure how well this team would have worked with any other sensei and their methods, or even how Naruto might have acted around that particular sensei, but he knew what he saw. Naruto worked well with Hinata and Shikamaru, they complimented each other well, in fact, Naruto, at least to Yamato, seemed to be the kind of guy that didn't stand for any bullshit and got straight to the point. He would even say that the blond was painfully honest when he wanted to make a point. He would know since he's seen Naruto talk down both his teammates and, in the same breath, gave tips and pointers on how to improve themselves. 

 

Sometimes Yamato felt like he wasn't the only sensei on the team. Most of the time, while they were doing their cho-D rank missions, Naruto would take point in finding ways to complete each mission both quickly and efficiently. After their first few days of taking missions, Yamato decided that he would opt into taking multiple missions for his team to complete so that they wouldn't have to be making the same trip back to make their report and take another mission. At first, the Hokage was amazed and curious on how one genin team could finish missions so swiftly, but after the third day in a row of this happening, he agreed with Yamato and let them pick a few missions at a time. This way, he would have to see team eleven every twenty to thirty minutes for their report. By the time it got late into the evening, around the time that most jonin would send their genin team home for the day, Yamato's team would have completed about twenty to thirty missions, depending on the length of each mission. Once they turn in their last batch of reports, Yamato would take back to the training ground for some light training to whip them in shape and keep them on their toes. Yamato didn't want to just focus on teamwork alone, or combat training alone like some senseis would have opted to do. Instead, each day he would pick something different for them to focus on and then throw in something else that they needed to work on. Since they got the hang of teamwork from missions, Yamato threw in some challenges along the way for them to do, seeing as how some ninjas had to multitask while working to make sure that all of their basses were covered. Some days, Yamato would let them take turns being the leader of the team while he watched things play out from the shadows. From those times, he had concluded that all three would make great jonin sensei's one day.

 

When it was Shikamaru's turn to lead, he leads his teammates the way that Yamato would expect him to. Shikamaru used his head and came up with strategies to go around the enemy. He assigned positions to both of his teammates based on what he saw they were good at. Naruto would be the heavy hitter or the distraction, while Hinata would be the lookout or the information gatherer, sometimes he would reverse their roles depending on what their goal was at the time. 

 

When it was Hinata's turn, she opted for gathering information first before making a move. She kept her team away from the enemy and had them take out any obstacles in their way as they searched for their target. Yamato could see that she liked the sneaky approach to things and would often like to use sign language to communicate with her teammates if they were ever close to the enemies hearing range. Yamato could see that she wasn't soo confident in her leadership skills as of yet, but he figured that within time, she would get to a level of confidences that will greatly help them out in the field.

 

When it was Naruto's turn, Yamato decided to really watch him. He had sensed for a while now that Naruto was maybe holding back some of his skills from him, even though it seemed like he trusted them more than anyone else in the village. When Naruto lead the team, Yamato took extra measures to make sure that he was not noticed by the blond. Every time Yamato tried to surprise Naruto in any way, Naruto seemed to sensei in every time he got close. So, when it was his turn to take lead, Yamato would try to make himself disappear before Naruto could sense him. The way that Naruto leads the team stuck him as natural, he listened to Shikamaru and Hinata's input before making a definite plan of action. Shikamaru and Hinata's roles were never really the same when he was in charge. Naruto would try to pull both of them from their comfort zones in order to complete their goals for the day, it usually worked out, but sometimes it made the exercise a little harder on them.

 

All in all, Yamato was impressed, he couldn't wait to challenge them more as a time went on.

 

Since it was the first month of them being a team, Yamato still saw some things that could be improved on in their tactics. Never the less, they all did well in his book. So, when the end of the month came around, Yamato was more than happy to announce, "congratulates team, you've impressed me greatly with your teamwork and the growth of your skills. Since you won the bet, today we're going to be asking Lord Hokage for your first C rank mission."

 

It had been a month with them making such great progress, Shikamaru nearly forgets about the deal they made altogether. He himself could see the progress they made coming together as a team, and when he really thought about it, he wasn't the same person he used to be when they came together a month ago. He didn't lay about and complain about what was a drag or what was troublesome half as much as he used to. Not to mention his own growth as a ninja. He wasn't sure how much of his growth was himself, Naruto's help and Hinata's enthusiastic engagement, or something else, but he knew that whichever it was, he was grateful. Not only did training with his team give him an excuse to be late coming home for dinner, but also a reason why he could sleep in a little bit longer in the mornings without his mom waking him up in her usual violent manner. Shikamaru also noticed that he had gotten much better with some of his family jutsus due to how much his team encouraged him to use it in their mock battle exercises. "Wait, you mean you were really serious about the bet back then?" Shikamaru asked. 

 

Hinata had also noticed that she had done a complete one-eighty in her personality and demeanor. She wasn't hiding behind anything, she put her best foot forward, and found a set of confidence in herself she didn't realize she had. Now that she thought about it, she was happy that the Hokage had put them together as a team. Even though she was still unsure of herself when it came to the times Captain Yamato asked her to lead their team for an exercise, she wasn't about to give up on her progress.

 

At the same time, Naruto was just happy that he wasn't going to have to find a whole new team that didn't seem like it would be all too troublesome for his liking. Shikamaru was a pretty good sounding board, but he hasn't told him anything too personal other than the story of when he was poisoned at three. He also hasn't told Hinata much more about the night he was born either, even though they had been living together for over a month now. It was then that Kurama decided to make a comment,  **"you know, kit, at some point, you're going to have to tell them about us."** The fox told him,  **"besides, the Kattcie seems to be making itself more at home here too, so eventually you won't be able to hide the fact for much longer."**

 

Naruto looked up at Kurama in his mind,  _"what are you talking about? I already let it see all of my memories from my time in the village. It knows just about everything that you and I know now."_

 

 **"That's exactly my point, kit."** Naruto waited for the fox to explain so he got a better understanding.  **"When a Kattcie finds a host to their liking, they bond with them and lend them some of their power, but in doing so, some of their features also crossover into the host."**

 

_"And that means..."_

 

 ** _"And that means that you'll become just like me, well, for the most part."_**  The Kattcie spoke up, ** _"in time, your body will start to change. You'll most likely find that your senses will be heightened greatly to the point that you may seem super-human or all-knowing to others, or both. Not only that, since it seems that the seal placed on you to keep in my cousin, you'll also get some of his features as well."_**

 

Naruto frowned,  _"please tell me I won't be getting furry ears and a trail, please."_  Neither being responded,  _"oh great."_

 

"Naruto?" 

 

Naruto came back to reality to see that his team was looking at him expectantly. "Huh? what?"

 

"We called your name about twice and you didn't answer until now." Shikamaru informed him, "you feeling okay today man?"

 

"Eh, yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking about what mission we might get," Naruto said covering himself smoothly. Or as smoothly as a genin could have in front of two genins and a jonin. If Yamato noticed, he didn't say anything. "So, are we going to just keep standing here? Let's get going before all the good ones are gone, the chunin do get first pick after all." Naruto stated as he started walking off towards the Hokage tower.

 

Shikamaru and Hinata looked at each other. "Is he feeling alright?" Shikamaru asked.

 

"How should I know? I'm not Naruto," Hinata said as she followed Naruto.

 

"No, I mean, since you two live together and all, I was wondering if you noticed something out of the ordinary this morning?" Shikamaru explained.

 

"How would-" Hinata stopped herself when Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at her. After spending so much time with the two, he found that he could tell when something was wrong with either of them or when one of them was trying to lie. Hinata sighed, "fine, so we live together. But still, it's not like we stand around spying on each other to see if we're alright each morning and night. The two of us are more like roommates, we mind our own business when its something too personal."

 

"Hm, so the Hyuuga heiress has already made her move on her crush, eh? Ah, to be young and in love, I suppose it's alright if two shack up now that you're ninjas." Yamato joked, making Hinata blush a little, "but, try not to get pregnant too soon, you're both still pretty young to become parents." He chuckled as Hinata's face turned into a tomato, one thing he would admit, he did like teasing his students sometimes, if only to lighten the mood. Other than that, it was plain fun.

 

Shikamaru agreed with their sensei and chuckled too. Even though he noticed that Naruto's and Hinata's relationship seemed to be purely friendly.

 

Hinata turned to both of them in embarrassed rage. "Oh hush, it's not like that okay! I just need a place to stay and he offered, that's it!"

 

Shikamaru smirked and patted Hinata on the shoulder, "it's alright Hinata, Naruto seems like a nice enough guy to do that much for you."

 

"But he's still that, a guy," Yamato added and both he and Shikamaru chuckled as Hinata seemed to, if possible, blush a brighter shade of red.

 

"S-s-shut u-up! I-I said i-its not li-like t-t-that!" Hinata stuttered it seemed that her stuttering only came back when she was extremely embarrassed.

 

Yamato laughed and patted Hinata on the head to make her feel better. "Sorry, sorry, Hinata, we were only joking with you. We'll stop now."

 

Hinata's face was still pretty red, but she was calming down, "f-fine..." She turned her back on them and folded her arms in front of her, "but you both owe us ice cream and dongos later!" She then took off to catch up with Naruto.

 

Shikamaru sweatdropped, "looks like we'll be spending some money later, huh Captain?"

 

"Looks like it." Yamato sighed, but he was glad to spend a little money one his students. After everything he's seen them achieve in one month, they deserved a little spoiling every once in a while.

 

* * *

**Missions room**

 

Team eleven entered the mission room as usual. Hiruzen looked up from his conversation with Shikaku to see what they wanted. "Team eleven reporting for duty, Lord Hokage," Yamato announced as his team stood at attention.

 

Shikaku did a double take at his own son when they walked in.  _"He's not slouching, is that even my son?"_  He wondered Shikamaru was standing straight up like a true soldier. His face was set between alert and relaxed and he seemed confident in each step he took to stand in front of the Hokage. He looked over at Hinata, she was the same way as Shikamaru, standing upright and unwavering in her eye contact.  _"Now that I think about it, it looks like Hinata hasn't even stepped foot near the Hyuuga compound since the genin exams. Every branch member that comes in contact with her and tries to get her to come back upon her father's request had no luck whatsoever in all of their efforts. If this keeps up, Hiashi just might start taking things into his own hands."_  Shikaku noted that Naruto's face seemed much like his two teammates own, but was also guarded ever so slightly. 

 

Hiruzen nodded to Yamato and his team, he was happy that Naruto had possibly made friends with kids his own age, as well as gotten along with his teammates.  _"I hope he keeps it up,"_ he thought as he looked through some missions for them to do.

 

Yamato noted that the Hokage was looking through the D rank missions for them. "Actually, Hokage-sama, we are here today to get a C rank mission," he said, stopping Hiuzen's movements.

 

"A C rank mission, you say?" Hiruzen asked, staring Yamato down, "do you really think they're ready for such a thing? They are still only genin, and they've only been under your teachings for a month." He pointed out, "are you sure about this?"

 

Yamato nodded his head once, "yes, Hokage-sama, I am. I will agree with you that it has been a short amount of time since they became my students. However, I believe that with the training they have gotten since then, it is about time for them to put that training to the test."

 

"Hmm..." Hiruzen thought as his eyes wandered over to Yamato's students. Naruto's eye seemed to pear right through him, as if he was not even there.  _"His eyes are so cold...is this really a good idea?"_  He looked back over to Yamato, who seemed to have a gleam in his eye, Hiruzen decided to trust the man nonetheless. "Very while. Wait a moment while I look for a suitable mission for your team."

 

Shikaku was pulled from his thoughts when he hears that. "Lord Hokage? Are you sure about this?" He asked curiously, he didn't want to sound like was questioning his village leader, but...well, he wasn't sure if he was ready to have his only son going off into the field so soon. Yet, he had expected this, so he supposed that this was inevitable.

 

Hiruzen nodded, "yes, I don't know if you were made aware of this or not, but this team's leader has put them all through the ringer. At least, that's what I got from the report he gave me last week. Yamato here has been training this team on a higher level than some of the other genin teams out there. The only other team that may come close to the number of skills these three have learned might have to be Kakashi's team."

 

Shikaku raised an eyebrow at that, "right. But I thought that Kakashi only had Sasuke Uchiha on his team. That isn't a usual team, actually, I wouldn't say that that's an official genin team at all." He commented and wondered why the Hokage allowed Sasuke to have Kakashi all to himself,  _"I'm going to assume that the civilian council had something to do with it."_

 

Hiruzen agreed, "yes, well we can discuss such matters later," he said as he found what he was looking for. "Ah, here it is, this mission involves the Feudal Lord of the Land of Bees and a very personal matter. This mission should take about a week to complete. Do you understand?"

 

"Yes, Hokage-sama," all three genins exclaimed.

 

"Good, it seems that the Lord of Bees is worried about the safety of his unborn child. We received this mission a little before you all came in, it doesn't say too much in the letter other than he would like our best team on the mission. However, all of our able chunin and jonin ninjas are either out on missions, or just coming back from one." Hiruzen stated seriously, "if you believe your team is up for this task, I will let you take this mission on, if not, I will have to find someone else and reassign your mission. The mission seems to deal with guarding and protecting the Lord of the Land of Bees fand his family from harm, as well as gathering information on his potential attackers. Do you all understand?" 

 

"Yes, sir!" The genin answered.

 

"Very well, since this is your first C rank mission, I must warn you that there will be a high chance of bloodshed. I would say to try to prepare yourselves for that, but no one can truly be prepared for such a thing." Hiruzen handed the mission scroll over to Yamato, "you all may leave whenever you're ready, the Lord of Bees will be expecting you sometime before nightfall tomorrow. Hape your travels are safe."

 

All three genin bowed before the Hokage before leaving the missions' office. Yamato was the last one to leave before he did, however, he addressed the Hokage, "I promise I will do everything in my power to bring them back home safe and sound." He this to also benefit Shikaku as well before he also bowed and left the room.

 

"You better," Shikaku said to himself. He then turned back to the Hokage once they were left alone in the room, "will Sasuke Uchiha be able to take missions like that as well?"

 

Hiruzen sighed tiredly, "if the council could help it, he would."

 

"And what about the Chunin exams?" Shikaku wondered, "will he be granted special allowances for that as well?"

 

"No," the Sarutobi shook his head as he looked at the Nara, "no matter how much the council may whine. I will not allow one genin to supersede his own rank just because he's the last of his clan and falls in favor with some people in power. Too much power and glory at that age are only asking for disaster to happen in the future."

 

Shikaku nodded, agreeing with the logic. "Now let's just hope that the damage is not already done."

 

Hiruzen agreed as he got back to his dreadful paperwork, but deep down inside, he held a fear that said it might already too late.

 

Meanwhile, Yamato was looking over the mission scroll with his team as they headed to a local restaurant. One that didn't mind having Naruto eating there, it was a pain to find. But once they found it, they made a compromise with the owner to sit in far back where the other customers can't see him. Shikamaru and Hinata said nothing about it, which Naruto was thankful for. At least this place hadn't tried to poison him once Yamato set up the arrangement for them. "Alright team, once we're done eating here, we'll head home to pack our stuff, take only what you may need, nothing you don't. The Land of Bees is not too far off from Iwa so we should be careful once we start getting close to that area, it should take us about four to five hours to get there depending on how many breaks we take on the way there. After we get there, we have to check in with the Feudal Lord's right-hand man first before we can meet the Lord himself and start our mission. Do either of you have any questions?" They shook their heads 'no' and signaled a waiter to order their food.

 

* * *

**Later that same day**

_Hyuuga Compound_

 

Hiashi paced the center of his office. He was a little frustrated at the moment. Since the first time he heard that Hinata had left the compound before dinner even started, to this very day, he had not seen his eldest daughter. Not only could he not find her around the village through the branch members he sent looking for her, but he also couldn't gather any information on where his daughter could have gone or was staying up until know. He didn't know much about the team she was placed on either after passing the genin exams, but that was mainly because he didn't care about that little fact at the time. Now, however, he figured that it was about time that Hinata came home right now so that he could give her title to Hanabi. The rightful heiress of the clan. But that didn't seem to be much of an option at the moment if he couldn't find Hinata first. Hiashi was fed up with pacing his office just thinking and decided it was time for action, he sat at his desk and called for a branch member. Within a minute, a branch member that was a little more familiar with Hinata appeared. Hiashi looked up to see who it was and inwardly groaned.

 

"Lord Hiashi, you called for me?"

 

"Yes, have a seat." Hiashi watched as Neji took a seat in one of the chairs before his desk. "Neji, I have a job for you to do."

 

"I will do my best," Neji said with a nod of his head.

 

His face betrayed no emotions like a Hyuuga's should. However, Hiashi still remembered the brilliant smile Neji used to wear proudly on his face. "I would like for you to find out everything you can about Hinata's team, her teammates, and senseis included. I also want to know where she's staying, once you find all of this out, report back to me. Also, if you find yourself to run into her one day, I would like for you to get her to come back to the compound. She has been away from the clan much too long, it's about time for her to come home."

 

Neji nodded, understanding his little task. It was no secret around the clan that Hinata had supposedly run away the night before the genin exams. Many of the main house members thought that she only did so because she thought she would fail the exams. Yet, they were actually a little surprising to hear that she had passed the genin exam and the actual test given by the sensei since the exams didn't guarantee ninja status. It only weeded out the weaklings. Neji had wondered about Hinata's sensei in that respect, even though his own sensei was...eccentric, to put it lightly, he didn't really give his team a very challenging test to see if he wanted to take them on or not. He almost supposed Hinata's sensei of doing the same thing, but he couldn't be sure of that since he wasn't there to see it himself. Since Hinata had left home the night before and then actually passed the genin exam  _and_  was then placed on a team, many people expected to see Hinata trying to sneak back into the compound at some time after. But that didn't happen, the branch members thought that Hinata might sneak back in within a weak or two, but it's been about a month. The main house members seemed to be angered by the lack of Hinata's return, none more so than Hiashi, her father of all people. Neji assumed that it was because she was an heiress and her place was at the compound when she wasn't doing official ninja business. Neji had noted that when he saw Hinata in the street, even though it was from far away and in passing, he saw the change that she had somehow undergone seemingly overnight, which was his first thought when he saw her for the first time after the genin exams. Seeing as how he had been out on a mission with his team during that time, he had to be caught up on everything that had happened. Needless to say, the Hinata he saw from far away looked like a whole new person. Although he knew that Hinata was missing from the compound for a month, every time he saw her running around the village with her team, she seemed, different.

 

Happier, maybe?

 

Either way, fate did not bring them together in the past month, so it seemed that Hiashi was turning to him to go to her and do what he couldn't: bring her home. 

 

Neji stood up and bowed to Hiashi, "I understand. I will do my best to bring Lady Hinata home as soon as possible."

 

"Good," Hiashi said as he started to get back to some of the paperwork on his desk. Neji had his hand on the door when Hiashi added one more thing, "oh, and Neji," the seasoned genin turned around to the clan head. "You are welcomed to use force if you feel it necessary. Dismissed."

 

Neji had to pause when he heard that.  _"Hiashi must have reached the end of his rope then."_ He thought to himself as he nodded his head to the man, "understood."

 

* * *

**With team 11**

 

Naruto and co. had finished their meal and separated to head back home to get their stuff. Yamato and Shikamaru left to go to their apartment and compound, respectively, while Naruto and Hinata left to go back to their shared home in the woods. On the way there, Hinata looked over to Naruto, "hey, Naruto, you okay?" She asked to break the silence that settled between them. 

 

"Eh, yeah, I'm fine, why do you ask?" Naruto answered.

 

"Oh, no reason really." Hinata replied, "I was just thinking about when you spaced out earlier. You usually never space out like that, or at least that I know of. You also never seem to really let your guard down either, even around out." She explained as they got closer to their house, Naruto stopped a few feet away from the front door and Hinata stopped with him. His gaze on her was a little intense, maybe more so than it usually is, making Hinata feel like she might have said something wrong. "Well, you see, I can sort of tell that you're always holding something back from us, not in skill level or in the effort you put into your work, but, I mean...well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you just seem a little out of it when you're usually more alert than that. I'm not trying to be nosy or anything."

 

Naruto stood there in thought as Hinata spoke,  _"so, I was really spaced out back then, huh? I must have been losing it if a small conversation with both Kurama and the Kattcie had that sort of effect on me. Also, it seems like I'm always tense around my teammates when I'm actually trying to come off as calm and relaxed...I'll needs to work on that more often then."_ He nodded his head and turned to the house while putting up a hand sign, he released the first layer of the jutsu that stopped anyone from finding their home. In front of them, what once stood a large field of grass, gave way to a smallish mansion with many rooms and lots of space. Since Hinata had moved in, he had his little house upsized to fit more people if ever he heads more people over to spend the night. Maybe if he ever threw a party or something, but he highly doubted that he would ever do such a thing, ever. No one in the village really liked or acknowledged him, so why hope for something hopeless? Still, the house was coming along nicely, there was more than enough space in the house to fit maybe two families in there. The more be built up and designed the house, the more he wanted to expand it to make room for even more designs that he thought up. One time Kurama had joked about him building a compound for refugees or something, but Naruto brushed it off as just a joke.

 

He was exactly thinking about having a family. 

 

Not in this village or at all. The way the villagers acted around him squished the idea quite violently when he was only five.

 

Frowning, Naruto undid the locks to the expanding house and walked in. Hinata followed him, still waiting for him to answer her. When she thought that he was never going to answer, Naruto turned to her. "Un, thanks for thinking about me. You might be the first to ever really stop and do that, so thank you, but I'm fine."

 

Hinata looked into Naruto's eyes, really looked. She could see something there, somehow she got the feeling that Naruto had an imaginary door in front of him that was keeping back all of his emotions. She never noticed it before, but as the month progressed, she started seeing it more and more. The way Naruto moved around other people that were not either her, Shikamaru, or Captain Yamato, it almost reminded her of a robot. As strange as that might sound. She sighed, thinking about this made her feel a little depressed, "you know you can still talk to us Naruto, we won't judge you. Shikamaru would find it too troublesome anyways, Captian Yamato would never stoop so low, and you already know how I feel." She turned away from him to make her way up the stairs without another word.

 

Naruto watched her go as he closed the door and redid all the locks.  _"I already know that Hinata, you don't need to remind me."_

 

 _ **"So then why don't you open up more to the little human girl. She seems well enough, I don't sense that she's like these other fools in this wretched dump."**_ The Kattcie climbed in as Naruto went upstairs to his own room.

 

_"Even so, I can never be too careful, a ninja stays on their toes at all time, lest they are stricken down."_

 

 _ **"Even so, you're emotions are too bottled. I feel like I'm about to drown in them the longer you keep things this way, little one. Why don't you let out some of those feelings? You may just feel better about."**_ Kurama chuckled,  _ **"and what happens to be so funny, cousin?"**_

 

 **"Hehe, the fact that I've only tried that a thousand times with him in the past and nothing has changed. You're more than wasting your breath, you're wasting your time too."** Kurama reasoned,  **"when the kit is ready, he'll come out of his bottle and share. Until then, I say leave him be. I've come to think of this as aging wine, timing is everything."**

 

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the fox as he packed his things.  _"Aging wine, huh? So what kind of wine am I? It better be good if you're going to wait so long. And what do you even know about wine in the first place Fuzzy?"_

 

 **"A lot, if you haven't forgotten how old I actually am. And also, I don't know."** Kurama smirked when Naruto sent him a deadpan look,  **"how could I when I haven't had a taste yet?"**

 

Naruto sighed, every conversation with the Kyuubi and the Kattcie always led to a bit of strangeness. He could be sure if it was only in his head since that where they took place or...okay so it was probably strange because the situation was strange. Naruto wasn't going to bother with trying to figure out why their conversations always led back to his pent-up emotions, but he might as well deal with it. He wasn't ready to let loose something that he's been holding back for years and years, he felt that if he actually did such a thing, he would be left naked and exposed. 

 

A feeling he loathed.

 

**With Shikamaru**

 

After breaking away from his team to head back home, Shikamaru realized that this would be the first time he was coming back home while daylight was still out. It was still fairly early in the morning actually, it was hours after breakfast, but not quite lunch yet. The sun was shining pleasantly and everything was peaceful. Shikamaru couldn't help the foreboding feeling that all of that might change fairly soon. As he enters his family home and made his way up to his room to pack, he noted that the hose was peacefully silent, almost eerily so. After packing two-forths of his bag, he heard the front door open and someone makes their way up the stairs and down the hall after a brief pause. He turned around to see who it was standing at his bedroom door and came face to face with his mom, "hey, mom, did you just get back?" Shikamaru asked the woman that he felt he hadn't seen in months.

 

Yoshino, Shikamaru's mother, smiled at her son, "yeah. I actually just got back from Yoshi's house at the Yamanaka compound." She informed him as he went back to packing, "so..." she started, "what's with the bag? Are you preparing for a big mission?"

 

"Yeah, actually, my team's getting ready for our first C rank mission." Shikamaru started as he checked his weapons pouch and restocked it with everything he would need.

 

Yoshino sighed and leaned on the door frame of Shikamaru's room, a nostalgic look in her eye. "Ah, to think my son would be growing so fast after becoming a ninja." She chuckled, "I honestly thought that I would be stuck with a lazy bum for a son even after you reached your teens." She laughed at the thought, "but now you've seemed to have broken out of your inherited laziness, unlike your father..." her face darkened when she thought of her husband. Even though she did love the man, she hated his laziness, especially when she asked him to do anything around the house. She leaned off the door frame and moved out of Shikamaru's way when it seemed like he had packed everything he would need from his bedroom and was moving downstairs to see if he needed anything else. Yoshino followed, "so, may I ask when I'll be seeing my little Shika-chan again?"

 

Shikamaru blushed at the nickname that his mother had given him since he was little, he hated the name. Mainly because of every son in their clan, or at least every son of the head family, had 'Shika' in their name. But mostly because it sounded girly and childish, "we should be back in about two weeks or less, depending on how well the mission goes." Shikamaru stated as he started packing some food for the journey, he made sure to pack enough food for his teammates as well.

 

Yoshino noticed what he was doing, "do you think that will be enough for Chouji? He is an Akamichi after all," she commented, "would you like some help making more?"

 

Shikamaru paused and thought about what mom said. He looked at her questioningly, "what do you mean for Chouji?" He asked as they both faintly hear the front door open and closed.

 

"Your teammate, Chouji," Yoshino replied as she started looking for a clean knife to help her son make sandwiches. "That reminds me, is Ino still on her silly little diet? I swear, girls like that are putting Kunoichi's to shame."

 

Shikamaru shook his head as his father walked into the Kitchen, "Ino and Chouji aren't on my team, mom. Who told you that?"

 

Yoshino and Shikaku stopped what they were doing. It was more like Shikaku froze in place, Shikamaru looked from his mom to his frozen father. Putting two and two together, he played along, "eh, nevermind, I was thinking about another team. Uh, yeah, I could probably use some extra help in making more food," he said, hoping that he could slip out of the house and make in time to meet his teammates.

 

Shikaku unfroze before his wife's gaze could fall on him, "my, my, son, you're supposed to start losing your memories when you start to get old. Not when you're still young," he stated jokingly as he got something to drink from the fridge.

 

"Hm, maybe I'm training too hard," Shikamaru commented as he moved to get more ingredients to make more sandwiches. Not that he really need all of this, but he supposed he could save his dad from being killed here and now by playing along.

 

"Mmm, I would say so," Yoshino said as she expertly made something quick and easy for her son's teammates. Even though they weren't the ones she was thinking of, "your sensei does seem to be working you guys to the limit, I'll have to talk to Asuma to see if he could get you guys to come home at a more reasonable time." 

 

"Mhmm..." Shikamaru said and the kitchen fell into a comfortable silence. 

 

Shikaku sat at the table reading a newspaper that he didn't get a chance to read earlier that morning. He was also hoping that his son would let him off the hook from not telling Yoshino that he wasn't apart of the Ino-Shika-Cho team as they were both expecting him to be. After a couple more minutes of silence in the kitchen, Yoshino decided that they had made enough food to last both on the way and back. But if Chouji really was on his team, it would only last until they got to their destination. "Alright, you're all set," she said as she finished tying up the food securely.

 

"Thanks a lot, mom, I guess I'll be heading out now. I don't want to be late meeting my team," Shikamaru said as he tried his best to make space for the food in his bag. However, he could see that it clearly wasn't going to fit in there so he took out a sealing scroll and sealed it in there instead.

 

Yoshino and Shikaku were surprised that he could use a sealing scroll without being a chunin. Since it was common for chunin to start using these types of scrolls on missions and then for the rest of there lives. "Did Asuma teach you how to do that?" Yoshino asked.

 

"Eh, yeah, sort of," Shikamaru stated, "he talked about its uses, so I bought some to try them out last week."

 

Yoshino nodded her head at his answer while Shikaku got up from his seat. "Well, son, how about I walk you over to the meeting place, there are some things I would like to tell you before you leave. Some tips on my own experience when I was your age." 

 

Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders, "alright." The father and son duo left the house, on their way to the meeting point, Shikamaru asked the question that he was already sure of the answer, but still wanted an answer anyways. "So, dad, when were you going to tell mom that I'm n-"

 

"Shh, I'm going to tell her, but I'm waiting for the right time." Shikaku defended himself.

 

Shikamaru looked up at his father, "it's already been a month, old man."

 

Shikaku sweatdropped, "you know you're mother's a scary woman when she's angry, right?"

 

Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders again, "not my problem."

 

Shikaku frowned at his son, "it might be later..."

 

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**One week later...**

 


	10. Missions and secrets 3

Shikamaru and Shikaku arrived at the meeting point in front of the gate just in time with Naruto and Hinata. Yamato was already there waiting. "Yo, you guys ready?" Shikamaru asked.

 

Naruto nodded, "sure, but what's with that big thing? Captain Yamato said to only bring things that we'll need."

 

"Yeah, well, this was kind of my dad's fault," Shikamaru said going to stand next to his fellow genin.

 

"Really?" Hinata looked up to the Nara head curiously, "how so?" 

 

"He didn't tell my mom that you two were my teammates instead of Chouji and Ino." Shikamaru explained as his father scratched the back of his head.

 

"How come?" Hinata asked.

 

Naruto stayed silent, watching the whole thing play out. He got the feeling that he would be the center of attention soon. 

 

Shikamaru shrugged, "donno," he looked over to his dad, "why haven't you told mom about them yet?" He asked he knew he never really had a chance to because, for one, he was busy focusing on his training to really worry about it. Two, he didn't see the big deal on who his teammates were. Why did it seem like a big deal to his parents?

 

Shikaku sighed, knowing that he was caught, "okay, so I'm sure that you've noted the way that some people look at you guys when you're with Naruto, right? It has something to do with the day he was born, that's all I can tell you for right now though." 

 

Shikamaru found it odd that his father was holding back information like that, but seeing as how they still had a mission to do, he dropped the subject. Hinata also thought it was strange that everything seemed to come back to Naruto's birth, she didn't want to pry, but she was getting more and more curious the longer time went on. She looked to Naruto, hoping that he would one day, hopefully so, feel comfortable enough to tell them what was going on with him. That is if he knew for himself. Now that it seemed that everything was settled, Yamato got his team's attention and they started out of the gate for the mission, however, as they were leaving, Hinata heard her name. She turned around to see who it could be and was a little surprised to see her cousin, her face fell a little, wondering what he wanted from her. Since leaving the compound, Hinata has found that Neji wasn't as scary as she made him out to be in her mind. Yes, he was older than her by a year, but he was in a similar boat as her which happened to be the lack of favor they held in her father's eyes. 

 

"Yes, nii-san? What is it?" She asked him casually, she still saw him as a sort of brother figure though. Even when he pushed her away after the death of his father.

 

"Hinata, why are you leaving the village?" Neji asked firmly, he knew that it had only been a month since she became a genin. Normally it would take genin two months or so before their sensei allowed them higher missions.

 

"Oh, Captain Yamato asked the Hokage to give us our first C rank mission." Hinata explained simply, "we're leaving now so we can get there, hopefully, before nightfall. Why, is there something you need from me, nii-san?"

 

Neji was a little surprised by how quickly her sensei is allowing her team to take higher missions. However, he masked his surprise well. "I see, well when you come back, your father would like to see you." Neji thought that this would get her to come back to the compound when she returned, yet he was a little shocked when he saw a bit of rage in her eyes at the mear mention of her father.

 

"Oh, I see. If that's all, then you can let him know that when I come back to the village, I  _won't_ be returning to the compound as he wishes." Hinata said firmly, "you can also tell him that I know about his plans, he should know what I'm talking about." She turned her back on Neji and walked away without looking back, "goodbye, Neji." When she rejoined her team, they took off into the forest surrounding the village.

 

"You okay Hinata?" Shikamaru asked.

 

"I'm fine, let's just focus on the mission," she replied.

 

Meanwhile, Neji stood at the gate watching her leave. He found Hinata's actions to be unfamiliar, out of character for her, but most of all, brave.  _"She's definitely changed since the last time I saw her. I wonder what happened to cause it."_

 

"You know..." Shikaku started, bringing Neji out of his thoughts. "I don't know Hinata too personally myself, but, I've heard somethings from about her from my son, Shikamaru. He's her teammate after all."

 

"Lord Nara, I didn't see you there, forgive my rudeness," Neji bowed to the man respectfully. "Do you mind telling me what was said about her? I would really like to know."

 

"Oh? Spying on your dear cousin for your uncle, eh?" Shikaku said as he stroked his beard, "well, suppose I can tell you. However, this is mostly hearsay."

 

"That is fine, please continue," Neji said.  _"any information is better than no information."_

 

"Hm, from what my son has told me, he's seen the two of them coming and going to training together, and suspects that they live together." Shikaku stated as he closed his eyes in thought, "he doesn't think that they're really dating, but he's also not sure if they are. I've managed to talk to their sensei a bit in passing, he's a reasonable man in my opinion." He thought for a second then remembered something, "if you really want to know more about how she's doing on her team, you could probably ask Lord Hokage. If you tell him that your uncle sent you, he might let you have a copy of her team's record of the past month. That's all I have to say for now though, see you later kid."

 

"Ah, yes, thank you, Lord Nara," Neji bowed at the retreating Nara's back.

 

"You can drop the Lord stuff, it's too stuff for me," Shikaku said with a backward wave to the Hyuuga boy.

 

 

* * *

**The Land of Bees**

 

It was late in the evening when they reached the Land of Bees. They had only stopped once on the way there, they rested under a shady tree and ate some of the sandwiches that Shikamaru's mom had packed. They had eaten a fair amount that would keep their energy up until they got all they got to the Land of Bees. Once they made it to the palace, they were introduced to the Feudal Lord's right-hand man, Xanxus, before making their way up to the Feudal Lord's main office. There, th situation was explained to them and their mission was officially started.

 

"I see, so these are the ninjas that have been sent to my aid?" The Lord asked his right-hand man while the Naruto's team knelt before him.

 

"Yes, my Lord, I checked the letter myself," Xanxus confirmed.

 

"Hmm...they seem a bit young for the job, but if Sarutobi recommended them, then they must have some skill." The Lord continued to look at the team in thought before whispering something in Xanxus's ear. The man left the room and they were alone. "Come, raise your heads so that I may get a good look at you all." The team of genin with their jonin sensei raised their heads and waited for the Lord to spoke again, as they waited, the Lord looked upon each of their faces as if he was remembering every detail. "You there, boy, with the blond hair," he gestured to Naruto, "tell me, who are your parents?"

 

Naruto kept a neutral face about him as he replied, "I have no idea, my Lord. I am an orphan."

 

The Lord nodded, "ah, my apologies, my child, I did not know. However, you looked quite familiar to me somehow, reminding me of someone I once met a long time ago."

 

"That is alright, my Lord, I accept your apologies," Naruto said with a slight bow.

 

"Good, now, let us get down to business." The Lord stated seriously, "the real reason I asked your team to come was to protect my wife and unborn child until it is born. Once my child is born, there will no longer be a threat from outside forces tiring to steal my position from under my nose." His eye focused on Naruto once more, "however, now that I have gotten a good understanding of who was sent to help me with this issue, I will be altering the mission's parameters a bit."

 

Shikamaru, Hinata, and Naruto shared brief looks at each other. They had never heard of a mission being altered before it even started, yet it wasn't an uncommon thing to happen in their line of work. Yamato cleared his throat, getting his genin to refocus on the mission again, "my Lord, if I may ask, what brought about this change?" He asked, "I know that my team and I will still do our best to help you in any way we possibly can. Still, I am left wondering."

 

"That is quite alright, I understand your concern." The Lord said as a light knock was heard on the other side of the door, "yes, come in." The door to the office opened and revealed Xanxus. "Well?"

 

Xanxus bowed his head lower, even though he was already in a kneeling position while he stood at the door. "My apologies, my Lord, by the Lady Affina is unwell enough to step out of her bed."

 

"Very well then, we will come to her," the Lord stood up from his seat and walked around his desk. "Please, follow me and I will explain everything on the way." The ninja team wasted no time in getting up from their own seats to follow the Lord to his wife's room...

 

* * *

**Later that night**

 

Shikamaru tossed himself onto his futon and sighed tiredly. "Well, this is something totally unexpected."

 

Hinata nodded from her spot in front of the window as she stared out at the night sky, "yeah," was all she could think of to say."

 

Naruto sighed as he sat on the window sile, "I can't believe our first mission is going to take at least seventeen to eighteen years to finish now." He asked more to himself dejectedly.

 

"And how in the world does Lord Fumi expect us to take care of a baby in the first place? We're still only genin for crying out loud," Shikamaru groaned.

 

Hinata shook her head, understanding where her teammates were coming from with their thoughts. She, herself, wondered the same thing. It wasn't like they all lived together, it was just her and Naruto, Shikamaru still had his family compound to go back to. Plus, the mission was just bumped up to an S rank mission in only a matter of minutes. Minutes!

 

To make a long story short, Lord Fumi, the Lord of Bees, and his wife, Lady Affina, had been trying to conceive a child for a few years now. The child had to be of royal blood or else they could not make the child his heir. Earlier this year, Lady Affina finally was able to conceive when all hope seemed to be lost, however, as she got further and further along in her pregnancy, the attacks on the Fumi and Affina were growing in number every day. It got to the point that one day last week, some was able to break into the castle and almost succeeded in kidnapping Affine as she took her evening nap. It was then that Lord Fumi decided to up their security even more than the regular guard that surrounded them at all times now, going out of his way to heir ninjas from the hidden leaf. He could have gotten ninja's from somewhere much closer like Suna or Iwa, but Fumi had made up his mind. He had come to know the third and fourth Hokage quite well during the war times while the fourth was still alive and decided that he was would trust a Konoha ninja first before trying somewhere else. With that said, Fumi sent a letter to Hiruzen Sarutobi asking for his most skilled and discreet team to help him on the matter, he knew that even after getting help from Konoha, the attacks would probably not stop, but get worse. His fears had been proven correct, because, on the day after sending the letter, Affine had become very kill. It was later discovered by their personal, and most trusted healer, that Affina had somehow been poisoned and there was nothing that they could do to save her life now. With this in mind, plus the ever-growing attack rate, Fumi had no choice.

 

This called for some desperate measures. 

 

When Fumi got a good look at the people on the team, he wasn't sure how reassured he felt. He thought he would get a full team of jonin and chunin, not some green genin and their sensei. Although, his thoughts and worries had been put to rest when he heard their introductions.

 

Captian Yamato-their sensei who had an air of secrecy around him.

 

Shikamaru Nara-from the genius clan, and thankfully, this Nara didn't seem to look as lazy as the rest of his clan. A bonus in his book.

 

Hinata Hyuuga-heiress of the Hyuuga clan, the best clan to call when you need a lookout. Their eyes are said to be quite good at seeing far away.

 

And then we have Naruto Uzumaki-the orphan boy.

 

Yet, when Lord Fumi heard the last name, Uzumaki, he couldn't help but remember the Uzumaki clan of old. Seal masters beyond any other, unmatched in their work, and as powerful as a raging storm in full swing. And Naruto, this boy was the spitting image of the Yondime Hokage himself! _"The question was, why did Naruto say that he was an orphan,"_ was what he wondered as he watched Naruto closely. In either case, Fumi did feel a little better having their help and came up with an excellent plan that he thought might just work after meeting them. 

 

**Flashback**

 

_"Since my wife is very ill, the doctor says that it is more than likely that she will die either during or after the birth. Even though it brings me great pain to separate out family so soon, we have no choice. If word of my offspring being born gets out, I fear that even though the attacks my dull some, they will never truly stop altogether, so, I propose this. Instead of having us worry about both our safety and our child, we will send them away to live and grow up in a safe place. A place where we both know they will be safe and will return to the castle to take my place when they are old enough to make their own decisions. That is why, I am asking you four, Yamato, Hinata, Shikamaru, and Naruto, to raise our child." Fumi explained as he held his sickly wife's hand._

 

_"But wait, hold on a minute, my Lord Fumi." Hinata spoke up after the room was filled with a long silence, "we are only still genin, I don't mean to question your decision, however, I must wonder of the soundness of this plan._

 

_Fumi nodded at her confusion, "the simple fact that you are still genin is exactly why I think this may work itself out." He stated, then he explained, "I know that the three of you are ninjas, yet, you are still quite young. If you removed the weapons, the headband, and the ranking all that would be left are innocent children. With some disguising, all of you can appear to be just that."_

 

_"Even so," Naruto stated, looking deep in thought. "Hmm...even so, it would still be dangerous. We would need to plan this out just right so that we may just make it back to the village alive. We would also need to keep this plan secret, meaning that no one other than you, your wife, the doctor doing the delivery, and our team will know about it. We cannot afford to let any of this information slip through the cracks."_

 

_Fumi nodded, "well said young man. With that said, I will be sending a letter explaining everything that we've discussed here with you for your Hokage to read. I don't want the message to be intercepted on its way there with other means."_

 

**Flashback end...**

 

 


	11. Wave and babies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a preview, let me know your thoughts. What do you think will happen next?

**Two weeks later...**

 

 

The night after arriving, Lady Affine gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that was named, Fuji, the birthplace of Affine's mother. The baby was checked out by the doctor and was found to be healthy and strong, but it was recommended that they wait to travel with her. Two days later, Affine had passed away in her sleep due to complications during her birth, the doctor was surprised that she lasted that long to begin with. However, there was no sign of foul play in Affine's death and that's what counted. Lord Fumi held a privet ceremony for his late wife to honor her memory, he decided that it was best not to let anyone else know about his wife's passing until after Yamato's team had left the Land of Bee's borders. Later that same day, under the cover of darkness, Lord Fumi decided that it would be best for Yamato and his team to take his newborn daughter and leave the country now before the people started wondering about Lady Affine's whereabouts. Lord Fumi handed them some gifts that would come in handy to them in the future as well as some extra money for service, some things they would need to care for Fuji while they traveled, and the letter he had written the night before. They agreed and left before midnight under the disguise of poor civilian travelers. Their disguise was that of an old man (Yamato) traveling with his oldest daughter (Hinata) and her twin son's (Shikamaru and Naruto) and newborn daughter (Fuji). Because they wanted to stay in character as much as possible without any possible enemies catching on, their journey back to Konoha took a little longer than expected. It took them at least a week and a half to get back into fire country and then another two days to get back to the village. Once they were back in the village, they made their way straight to the Hokage's Tower to give their report and the letter to their kage. Hiruzen read over the letter and was skeptical about the extended parameters of Lord Fumi's request. 

 

"Hm, this does seem to be of great importance, however, I don't think I can, in good faith, allow your team to continue with this mission." Hiruzen stated as he put the letter down, "for one, you three are still young genin, and the life of a genin is filled with learning experiences. You are busy enough with D rank missions, what will you do when there's another C rank mission to go on? Also, a newborn has expenses that need to be met. Clothes, diapers, formula, ect., not to mention the constant care that she would need since she is still so young," he explained.

 

Naruto nodded, "yes, Lord Hokage, we are aware of that. We were actually talking about the same thing on our way back."

 

"Oh?" Hiruzen raised an eyebrow, "and have you been able to come up with?" 

 

 


End file.
